3.4m added to list of Ehsaas beneficiaries

As Ehsaas — an umbrella of 20 programmes of social safety and welfare — has completed a fresh poverty survey for 2021 in the country, the number of Benazir Income Support Programme beneficiaries has increased to 8.2 million.

The first BISP survey that was completed in 2011 had 23 variables to ascertain the deserving people but the fresh one under its new name Ehsaas Kafalat Programme (EKP) has 43 variables covering wider range of aspects related to the less privileged segments of society.

According to the 2011 survey, there were 4.8m people registered with the BISP in addition to those 800,000 beneficiaries including government employees whose names were removed from the list in December 2019 for being “ineligible”.

As per the 2021 data based on the fresh survey, 3.4m people have been added to the list of beneficiaries.