KARACHI: The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), country’s largest social safety net programme that caters to the welfare of the poorest households across the Pakistan, has decided to update household-level data as per international standards. In this regard, the BISP, while annulling previous request for expressions of interest (REOI) for consulting services issued in June 2017, has invited fresh EoIs. Keeping in consideration the international best practices, the existing data of the National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) that was established as a result of the previous Nationwide Poverty Scorecard Survey carried out during 2010-11, is being updated to account for changes in the socioeconomic conditions over the years. The updated data will help BISP in assessing welfare status of the existing beneficiaries as well as help in identifying new eligible families that need to enter the programme, said a statement issued on the occasion. For updating the NSER, BISP has made a shift from Paper Based Personal Interviewing (PAPI) method to Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) methodology. The targeting of the beneficiaries is being undertaken in two phases. In Phase-I, 15 districts across Pakistan have been surveyed at households level. In the coming days, BISP intends to rollout Phase-II of NSER Update using CAPI approach. Where CAPI approach would not be feasible, Paper Assisted Personal Interviewing (PAPI) shall be used to ensure 100 percent coverage of the households across the country. For the National Rollout of Household Survey, 156 districts across the country have been divided in eight geographically contiguous clusters, including districts of the pilot phase – Cluster-1 Northern Punjab, AJK and ICT; Cluster-2 Central Punjab; Cluster-3 southern Punjab; Cluster-4 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan; Cluster-5 Upper Sindh and Bahawalpur Division; Cluster-6 Karachi, Makran and Lower Balochistan; Cluster-7 Upper Balochistan; Cluster-8 FATA. BISP intends to carry out the Operations Review (OR) including “Qualitative” and “Quantitative” evaluations of the progress and performance of survey firms that shall undertake the survey. The OR firm will undertake process evaluation and sample based spot checks to validate content quality and coverage of survey firms. The Pilot Phase of NSER comprising 15 districts has already been completed; however, operations review through sample based spot checks of Pilot Phase would be needed. Published in Daily Times, March 10th 2018.