Zubair Qureshi
Under Ehsaas Rashan Riayat programne, around 20 million families with monthly income below Rs 50,000 have been entitled to receive a discount of Rs1000 every month on the purchase of three grocery items like flour, pulses, cooking oil/ghee.
This was stated by the media coordinator of the Ehsaas Programme while talking to journalists here Tuesday.
The federal cabinet approved the programme in the first week of November and shortly thereafter a communication campaign was launched to solicit applications for this program, he further said.
The public response to the discount programme has been overwhelming and so far over 9 million families have been registered to seek support from this program and over 10,000 retail units have also expressed their interest and have registered.
The Ehsaas Rashan website has had more than 500 million visits over the last month. The next phase in this program involves analysis which will be done later this month. Eligible families will receive confirmation of their eligibility status through an SMS from 8171, which is the Ehsaas SMS identity.
This is an end-to-end digital program and involves processing of the subsidy through a mobile point of sale which will be downloadable by the Kiryana retailer. The government is encouraging more retailers to enroll in the program.
Ehsaas Rashan Riayat is expected to start accruing benefits from the last week of December.
Those families who are desirous of registering and want to seek benefit from the program should SMS their National Identity number to 8171 making sure that the mobile phone which is used for texting is registered in the name of the same national identity card number. Kiryana merchants desirous of participating should register at ehsaasrashan.pass.gov.ok visit the nearest branch of National Bank of Pakistan.
