Prime Minister Imran Khan formally launched the Ehsaas Ration Portal in Islamabad to facilitate the private sector in providing food rations to the most vulnerable people in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.
Through the portal, the role of government will be to facilitate match-making between donors and beneficiaries (e.g., on geographic basis) and provide data of eligible beneficiaries to donors.
During this crisis, many private sector organizations have expressed their willingness to support the needy, complementing the support that the government is providing. This portal enables this generosity to be coordinated across the country. To facilitate the process, the government has developed a web-based portal, accessible at rashan.pass.gov.pk.
Addressing a press conference, Prime Minister Imran Khan reiterated,”Ehsaas Ration Portal will enable philanthropists, charity organizations and other non-government organizations to reach out to deserving families and provide rations to poor segments of the society. The online portal will play a vital role in making the ration distribution system completely transparent.”
Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Sania Nishtar said, “The role of the government is entirely match making between credible donors, and eligible beneficiaries.”
Part of Rashan portal protocols, beneficiaries’ information will be validated, and eligibility determined using Ehsaas data. Donors will be evaluated against a specific eligibility criterion to ensure only trustworthy, tax compliant, and at-scale organizations become partners of the program.
Further, after signing data privacy agreements, beneficiary information will be shared with donors to ensure the disbursement of food ration packs or cash equivalent to beneficiaries. The government will ensure one person from a family gets the benefit and will monitor delivery on a sample basis.
The private sector will be responsible for establishing a mechanism for sourcing and disbursement of Rashan or cash equivalent for beneficiaries. Donors will be given a list of parameters to select from to identify which segment of the beneficiaries do they want to support.
The parameters include area of residence district/tehsil, gender of the beneficiary, etc. Based on the chosen parameters a subset of beneficiaries will be identified from a larger pool who may then benefit based on a first-in first-out basis.
There are two categories of donors that the government is looking towards initially in the Ehsaas Rashan Portal i.e. For-profit private organizations and Not-for-profit private organizations.
Their eligibility criteria are posted on the website rashan.pass.gov.pk. The government will be starting with large corporate donors with annual revenue of at least Rs. 2 billion willing to donate at least Rs. 10 Million in Rashan packs or cash equivalent. Similarly, NGOs approved by Ministry of Interior and EAD willing to donate Rs. 2 billion are invited to participate at this stage.
