The cabinet has ratified the Economic Coordination Committee’s (ECC) decision to increase the Ehsaas Kafaalat stipend from Rs12000 to Rs13,000. This was announced by Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Sania Nishtar on her Twitter account.
“Cabinet has ratified ECC’s decision to approve the Ministry of Poverty Alleviation’s proposal to increase #EhsaasKafaalat stipend & grant equivalent of an extra month of payment to all beneficiaries every year. The 6-month stipend will increase from Rs 12,000 to 13,000 from Jan 22.”
Last month, the World Bank in a report had recognized Ehsaas Emergency Cash among the top four social protection interventions globally in terms of the number of people covered.
The World Bank has just released a report on “global social protection responses to Covid-19”.
The report stated that there had been “an exponential growth in social protection measures between March 20, 2020, and May 14, 2021, and that a total of 3,333 social protection measures have been planned or implemented in 222 countries or territories”.
Pakistan ranked fourth globally in terms of the number of people covered and third globally in terms of the percentage of population covered amongst those that covered over 100 million people; the World Bank had stated that only “select countries have attained impressive six-digit levels” in this regard. Pakistan’s Ehsaas Emergency Cash is one of them.
