ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the First One Window Ehsaas Center in Islamabad on Wednesday, aimed at ensuring access to all the facilities and services of the Ehsaas Program under one roof.
“We will open Ehsaas One Window Centers in every district,” the Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr. Sania Nishtar said.
Under the Ehsaas umbrella, there are many programs for 14 different target groups. But often, a poor family is not aware of the benefits they are entitled to and if they are aware, they have to go to multiple offices to seek help.
With One Window Ehsaas, the aim is to deliver services through a single window, a one-stop-shop.
One Window Ehsaas has six pillars: A One Stop Shop, the Ehsaas Center; a public-facing digital information and services platform; mobile app; back-office consolidated digital interface; Cognitive API architecture, or the integrated national socioeconomic database; and finally, the Ehsaas One-Window Beneficiary Selection and Targeting Policy
The first One Window Ehsaas Center is opening in Sitara Market on Tuesday in Islamabad. In this center, all Ehsaas services can be accessed in one place. To facilitate Ehsaas Kafaalat beneficiaries, whose families receive stipends, both Point of Sales machines as well as cash machines or ATMs have been placed in the One Window Center.
Partner banks have opened their branches in the center, and NADRA Office has been set up as well. Having all these services in one center can significantly facilitate an Ehsaas Kafaalat beneficiary, who often previously needed to go to many offices to get complaints resolved. Ehsaas stipends for children can be accessed at the center also.
The digital system, which has recently been put in place does real-time verifications from three data sources before the child is enrolled in the program and if the child doesn’t have a Birth registration form—which is a prerequisite for enrollment—the mother can just walk the courtyard to get it made in the NADRA center rather than taking taxi to go to another site.
Ehsaas Nashonuma services are also available in the center.
Children at risk of stunting and pregnant mothers can get specialized nutritional food from the office and cash stipends from the ATM. They get awareness session as well on health and nutrition. Antenatal services and immunization services are available at the center.
Students can walk into the center and get information about Ehsaas Undergraduate Scholarship, and they don’t have to pay in an internet café to fill their application.
In the One Window center, there is free use of the internet, computer, and printer.
In the One Window center, someone, looking for a livelihood opportunity can visit Ehsaas Amdan and Ehsaas Interest-Free Loan Desks. A person in need of financial assistance for health can find out about Sehat Sahulat and if not entitled in Sehat Sahulat or not in an empaneled hospital can be channeled to Ehsaas Tahafuz or PBM’s health-related financial assistance systems.
In the One Window service, there also are many care services. Somebody wanting to spend a night in Panagah can book a bed and get free One Star bed and breakfast facility. People can admit a child in an orphanage; and a young woman can get information and be admitted in a vocational center.
A street child can be admitted in one of our free schools. Ehsaas Registration Desks have been set up where people can get surveyed, to ascertain if they are eligible for Ehsaas benefits. In the center, Dashboards, display information relevant to people’s needs and complaints are addressed in real-time.
There is also a beneficiary retiring room, in case a woman comes with a child and needs to feed her. A differently-abled individual can have multiple avenues of redress in the center. Processes are being made simpler so that they can get a disability card made with ease. In the same disability room, NGOs are given space to provide free prosthesis and orthoses. Also, a customized wheelchair can be ordered
The second part is the digital e-portal with people-centered information; this was built learning from the questions on social media about various Ehsaas programs.
The third part of One Window Ehsaas is an app which mirrors information on the digital portal but in addition, it also marks locations of our service sites: Langars, Panagahs and payment sites. When opened from a mobile, an individual can be navigated to the address. This app is enabled with a camera, which allows a photograph to pick the geolocation of an Ehsaas social welfare site to be mapped.
The fourth part is the integrated digital interface facing the back office, which facilitates access of all those working in the Ehsaas ecosystem to appropriate links and resources.
The fifth component of One Window Ehsaas is the integrated database. Previously the 2010 BISP data was siloed; even provincial social protection agencies had to do the paperwork to access the database and there were costs involved.
Now, under the Ehsaas data reform, all federal Ehsaas implementing agencies will be able to access data from the 2021 Ehsaas National Socio-economic Registry through APIs with no cost at all. This two-way data sharing will also enrich the data repository. Data integration will also enable transparency.
Agencies will be able to see what benefits an individual or the family are getting, and the entitlements they have in terms of various Ehsaas programs.
The sixth pillar of One Window Ehsaas is the Standardized Beneficiary Targeting Policy. Previously, all agencies used their own eligibility ascertainment system—this Policy will compel standardized beneficiary targeting using the Proxy Means Test, which uses information on household and individual characteristics to compute an algorithm-generated score (0-100) for each household, which then serves as a proxy for welfare status.
The information needed to generate the score comes from the National Socioeconomic Survey. So, in the One Window Policy specific PMTs were stipulated for each program and a policy devised to do away with duplications.
