‘Poverty alleviation programme is about creating a welfare state’
Times News Service
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s new Ehsaas poverty alleviation programme is all about creating a welfare state according to Prime Minister Imran Khan.
In his policy statement about the program, Khan said, “Ehsaas is about the creation of a ‘welfare state’ by countering elite capture and leveraging 21st century tools—such as using data and technology to create precision safety nets; promoting financial inclusion and access to digital services.”
The programme, he detailed, was for “the extreme poor, orphans, widows, the homeless, the disabled, those who risk medical impoverishment, for the jobless, for poor farmers, for labourers, for the sick and undernourished; for students from low-income backgrounds and for poor women and elderly citizens.
“This plan is also about lifting lagging areas where poverty is higher.”
The programme is based on four pillars and 115 policy actions according to Khan. The pillars he listed include addressing ‘elite capture’ and making the system of government work to create equality; safety nets for disadvantaged segments of the population; jobs and livelihoods; and human capital development.
Khan added, “It is the prime duty of the government to cater for those that are left behind, and to build safeguards against elite capture, which is evident in the taxation system, in water management, in crop choices, in land use priorities, labour laws and in much else.”
Outlining his plans, Khan proposed a constitutional amendment to “make provision of food, clothing, housing, education and medical relief for citizens who cannot earn a livelihood due to infirmity, sickness or unemployment” a responsibility of the state.
Additionally, he said social protection spending would increase by PKR80 billion in Pakistan’s 2019-20 budget and that the total incremental increase in the 202021 budget would be PKR120 billion. Khan added that as part of the programme, total social protection spending would rise to account for one per cent of the country’s GDP.