Daily Times

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Senator Dr Sania Nishtar Sunday said that in view of the price hike due to corona pandemic, Prime Minister Imran Khan announced the ‘Ehsaas Rashan programme’ to provide edible items to people with low price.

She said this while addressing a press conference after briefing regarding Ehsaas Rashan Program at National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) Main Branch Mall Road Peshawar. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Information Kamran Bangash, Deputy Speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Mahmood Jan, officials of National Bank and owners of kiryana merchant (general stores) attended the briefing. Dr Sania Nishtar said that the Ehsaas Rashan program launched by the federal government having 65 percent share of the government of Khyber Pakhtnkhwa to provide relief to the poor. She said that as many as 20 million families identified through the recently completed Ehsaas survey would benefit from the programme, adding overall; 130 million people would benefit nationwide which is 53 percent of the population. She said that Ehsaas Rashan provides a subsidy of Rs. 1,000 a month to each of the 20 million families on the purchase of flour, pulses, ghee and cooking oil. A 30 percent subsidy will be given on these three items, per unit purchase she added. Ehsaas has developed a digitally enabled mobile point of sale system in collaboration with National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) to serve beneficiaries through a network of Kiryana stores designated by NBP, all over the country, Dr Sania told. She said that she would visit 30 cities in this connection.She said the citizen could get information on website for their registration to get benefit of the programme that would be continued for three weeks and the programme would be started in December. She informed that those families who have less than 50,000 per month income could eligible to apply for registration. However, those government employees who have less than 31500 salary per month would also get benefit from the said programme.