KARACHI: Minister of State and Chairperson, Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), MNA Marvi Memon said that the annual budgets of BISP has been increased from Rs 40 billion to Rs 115 billion, so that more people get the funds. In a statement, she said that BISP services over 5.3 million women and gives stipends of Rs 4,700 every 3 months, based on a survey conducted in 2010. Chairperson BISP informed that the new poverty survey of BISP is being done in line with international best practice of resurvey after 5 years. “BISP aims to be the pride of Pakistan and be number one in the world through this survey,” she claimed. The Minister reiterated that the survey is not being conducted because of corruption as highlighted by a certain segment of media. For corruption issues, first time in BISP’s history, Internal Audit department has been set up, data sanity checks were conducted, staff has been suspended, payment mechanisms are being changed to make all payments biometric starting from September 2016 and ending next year. Discussing the details of new survey, Chairperson BISP said that the pilot phase of resurvey started in Haripur district on June 15, 2016. In 2016, 16 districts will be covered. Rest of Pakistan will be covered in 2017 and early 2018. Thus well before next general elections all districts will be covered. The Minister informed that to make resurvey fool proof, tablets, not forms, are being used and its computer based not paper based. It has an operational review process for double checked data. Local governments, media and civil society have access to a hotline for complaints so that survey details can be improved. The Poverty Means Test and scorecard methodology have been technically improved and filters have been added. Survey is testing desk based approach where women come to desks in each union council. Door to door approach is also being employed. She informed that at present, 11 districts are on Pakistan Post, 122 on BDC ATMs, 1 on mobile banking, and 5 on biometric payment mechanism. In September 2016, new system of biometric verification is being started which should take one year to cover entire Pakistan and make system safe. She also said that the Waseela-eTaleem initiative of BISP and informed that over 1.3 million children have been enrolled in schools by BISP by giving them Rs 250 per child per month in 32 districts. This ensures 1.3 million children off child labour market. 50,000 BBC BISP beneficiary committees have been set up for awareness which can be used for other programs like immunization, family planning, malnutrition and violence against women. While talking about development partners of BISP, Chairperson BISP stated that 90% of the budget is government funded while 10% is funded by ADB, WB and DIFID. Their technical assistance gives BISP international recognition. League of social safety nets is being created by Pakistan with the help of ADB in order to coordinate efforts of all Asian social safety nets. The minister also said that BISP has the most accurate data of 27 million households of the country. She offered that database to the corporate sector in order to locate the poorest people across Pakistan for philanthropic purposes.