Check Your Household in PSER Before Applying for Punjab Aid: Eligibility Link and Helpline 1221

Short answer: PSER is the Punjab Socio-Economic Registry, the household database the province uses to decide who qualifies for aid programmes. To check whether your household is counted, use the Online Eligibility Check linked on the Punjab Social Protection Authority (PSPA) site, or call its 24-hour helpline 1221.

Many Punjab aid pages end with the same line: "your household must be on PSER." Readers then ask the obvious question. What is PSER, who put us on it, and how do we know if we are?

We read the PSER site and the PSPA site on 12 October 2026 to answer that. The answers are plainer than the acronym suggests, and some of them are not good news if you are waiting for a visit that never came.

PSER is a household survey that produces a poverty score

PSER is a province-wide database of households. Trained teams visit homes with digital tools and record family size, education, work, housing conditions and access to basic services. The data is then turned into a score that decides who is a priority for aid.

PSPA describes it as a real-time data store covering demographics, assets and living conditions. The score is called a Proxy Means Test, or PMT. A proxy means test estimates how poor a household is from things that can be observed, such as the house, the assets and the number of earners, rather than from a declared income.

The door-to-door survey began on 23 April 2025

A PSPA notice dated 22 April 2025 says the PSER door-to-door survey would start on 23 April 2025, on the Chief Minister's direction. The PSER home page still shows a banner with "Last Date: January 31, 2025", so that banner was not updated after the survey began.

We found no page on either site that gives a new closing date or says the survey is finished. So treat any "last date" you see on a social post as unconfirmed, and check the official sites yourself.

The PSER site names the partners: the Planning and Development Board leads, with PSPA as implementing agency, working with the technology board, the Urban Unit and the Bureau of Statistics. Senior Minister for Planning and Development oversees it, according to PSPA.

Check your household using the eligibility link or helpline 1221

PSPA's home page has an "Online Eligibility Check" button that goes to pep.pspa.gop.pk. A separate PSPA notice, dated 12 September 2023, gives the Social Protection Helpline 1221 as a 24-hour call centre for eligibility and inclusion questions, complaints and cash-out agent details.

We could not load the eligibility portal from our test connection on 12 October, so we cannot describe its fields. Have these ready when you use it or call.

1. The CNIC number of the head of household, and the CNICs of adult members.
2. Your full address, district and tehsil, as you would give a surveyor.
3. The mobile number linked to your household, if you have one.
4. The name of the programme you want to apply for, so the agent can tell you its own rule.
5. A pen and paper to write down the complaint or reference number.

Do not pay anyone to "enter" you. The department's own pages describe a survey done by its teams, not by agents. If someone asks for money to add a household, report it. Our list of official Punjab helplines carries the lines you can use.

Which programmes use PSER

PSER is not one scheme. It is the filter that several PSPA programmes rely on. The programme names listed on the PSPA home page are Humqadam, Zewar-e-Taleem, Sila-e-Fun, the income scheme for persons with disabilities, Nayee Zindagi, Masawaat, Aaghosh, Khud Mukhtar and Bunyad.

Other departments use it too. Our report on the CM Punjab Rahmat Card says the department picks people from PSER. Our Maryam Nawaz ration card guide also names PSER among its conditions.

What a PSER entry does not promise

Being in the registry does not mean you get money. It means your household has a score. Each programme sets its own cut-off and its own other conditions, and many have quotas by district or a closing date.

Your score is also checked against records. The PSER model sends CNICs to departments for wealth and asset verification. If you think your data is wrong, ask 1221 how to request a correction. We did not find a published correction procedure on either site.

Common questions

What does PSER stand for?

It stands for Punjab Socio-Economic Registry, a province-wide database of households run by the Punjab Social Protection Authority with the technology board.

Is there a fee to register in PSER?

The pages we read name no fee. The data is collected by survey teams at your door, so do not pay an agent to enter you.

How do I know if my household was surveyed?

Use the Online Eligibility Check on the PSPA site, or call 1221. The site we read gives no other public lookup.

What is a PMT score?

It is a Proxy Means Test score. It estimates poverty from household assets and conditions, and programmes use it to rank applicants.

Is the PSER survey still open?

We found no closing date and no end notice. The PSER home page still shows a January 2025 date, so confirm with 1221 before you rely on any claim.

Does PSER decide the Maryam ko Batayn aid?

The Chief Minister announced that households already on PSER would receive that aid within 24 hours. We explain the line in our guide to Maryam ko Batayn on 1000.

How we verified this

What we checked, where we read it, and what we could not confirm.

We read the PSER site and the PSPA home page and PSER page on 12 October 2026. We could not load the PSPA eligibility portal and did not call 1221. Programme rules change, so confirm each one with the department running it.

• Punjab Socio-Economic Registry: pser.punjab.gov.pk
• Punjab Social Protection Authority: pspa.punjab.gov.pk