ISLAMABAD: Ehsaas, the government-run social safety net, has completed its countrywide National Socio-Economic Registry Survey and identified more than 34 million poor families to be eligible for financial assistance of Rs2,000 per month.

The door-to-door survey was conducted across the country after a gap of 10 years to gather data about the socio-economic status of households. It includes households’ information in terms of geographic data, demographics, socio-economic status, education, health, disability, employment, ene­rgy consumption, assets, communications, agri-landholdings, water-sanitation-and-hygiene (WASH) and livestock.

A ceremony was organised here on Thursday to celebrate the achievement. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Dr Sania Nishtar, World Bank Country Director Najy Benhassine, UN Resident Coordinator Julien Harneis, Secretary Ismat Tahira and senior representatives of the Asian Develop­ment Bank, government departments and development partners joined the event.

In her opening remarks, Dr Nishtar said: “As part of Ehsaas strategy, we have just concluded a new National Socio-economic Registry of 34.41 million households. We did various validations of the data to precisely identify the real poor. With the readiness of survey, we are now transiting from static to dynamic registry to make it more targeting, efficient and to avoid possible inclusion and exclusion errors occurred due to continuous change in socio-economic status of the households, especially due to demographic change.

“Tehsil-level Ehsaas registration desks have also been opened all over the country to keep the national socio-economic registry dynamic. Further, the registry will be regularly updated every four years.”

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2022