Ehsas program by imran khan

On March 27, I launched the “Ehsaas” program, the objective of which is to reduce inequality, invest in people, and lift lagging districts.

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; supporting the economic empowerment of women; focusing on the central role of human capital formation for poverty eradication, economic growth and sustainable development; and overcoming financial barriers to accessing health and post-secondary education.  

The program’s principles and approaches also center on tapping whole-of-government multi-sectoral collaboration for solutions; ensuring joint federal-provincial leadership; and mainstreaming the role of the private sector through an approach which will provide a level playing field on the one hand and foster locally-relevant innovation on the other, to create jobs and promote livelihood in quick-win areas. The program’s premise is grounded in the importance of strengthening institutions, transparency and good governance.

The program is for the extreme poor, orphans, widows, the homeless, the disabled, those who risk medical impoverishment, for the jobless, for poor farmers, for laborers, 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.

Ehsaas’ poverty reduction strategy is articulated in four pillars and it currently embodies 115 policy actions, which may be expanded as the process of consultations on the program, further widens. The four pillars include: addressing elite capture and making the government system work to create equality; safety nets for disadvantaged segments of the population; jobs and livelihoods; and human capital development.

I. ADDRESSING ELITE CAPTURE AND MAKING THE GOVERNMENT SYSTEM WORK FOR EQUALITY

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, labor laws and in much else.

In this respect, the first pillar encompasses the following policies  

• A new constitutional amendment to move article 38(d) from the “Principles of Policy” section into the “Fundamental Rights” section.  This change will make provision of food, clothing, housing, education and medical relief for citizens who cannot earn a livelihood due to infirmity, sickness or unemployment, a state responsibility

Increase in social protection spending. Additional PKR 80 billion will be added to social protection spending in the forthcoming budget (2019-20) and in the next budget (2020-21) there will be a further increase; hence total incremental increase will be PKR 120 billion. At this level, social protection spending will be 1% of the GDP with federal and provincial contribution