Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Despite the passing the period of six years no poverty survey has been conducted by the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

Credible sources told Daily Times that the poverty survey was conducted in the year 2010-11 by the BISP.

As per survey report, as many as about 7.7 million people were declared deserving ones but three million people were not included in the BISP programme so far nor any financial assistance had being granted to them.

Tens of thousands peoples are forced to visit the BISP offices but various objections are raised on the grant applications of orphans, poor old persons and persons with disability, by the concerned officials.

“Wasial-e-Sehat and insurance programmes for the poor and needy persons of the country were launched by the BISP, under which every card holder can get the facilities of treatment and other medical facilities worth Rs 25000 from the hospitals entitled for BISP”, sources added and maintained that world donor agencies including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the US Aid and others were providing funds for these projects but they had ceased the funds and ordered the BISP to improve its performance.

Sources further told that the “Wasila-e-Haq” programme was launched a few years ago but it was limited to Faisalabad only while tens of thousands people were deprived of this facility in other poverty stricken areas.

Similarly, the “Wasila-e-Rozgar” programme was closed due to its failure. The primary object of this programme was to provide technical training to poor people to empower them financially.

Daily Times, contacted the spokesperson of the BISP, Mr. Muhammad Arjmand, to know his stance. He responded that currently approximately 5.3 million beneficiaries of BISP were being provided Rs 1500 each every month while a poverty survey had also been started.

“Currently, a poverty survey is going on in 16 districts of the country. Later this survey would be started across the country by December 2016”, the spokesperson added and maintained that as many as 7.7 million people had been included in the BISP beneficiaries during the survey conducted in 2010-11.

He further told that as CNICs were not mandatory in 2010-11 therefore many problems had risen in this regard and some people were not included in the beneficiaries’ list owing to some technical issue.

Adnan Argmend further said that presently “we are working on the programme of “Wasial-e-Taleem”. Under this programme as many as 1.3 million children had been admitted to schools and were receiving Rs 250 as scholarship on a monthly basis.

The spokesperson added that currently over 300 offices of the BISP are functioning at tehsil levels across the country including AJK and Gilgit Baltistan while 31 offices at the divisional level and six on the regional level were functioning. Approximately 2000 employees of different cadres were performing their duties in these offices.

Responding to a question, the spokesperson said that the “Wasila-e-Sehat” programme was launched in Faisalabad on an experimental basis where over 60000 persons were included in the scheme. Most of the beneficiaries of this programme were women who were getting benefits for the treatment of maternity but later on this programme had been closed owing to unavoidable circumstances.

Meanwhile, currently all the programmes of the BISP are closed including the “Wasila-e-Rozgar” and further development on these programmes were going on adding that people were being given training in 52 various programmes and the trainees were granted Rs 6000 per month as scholarship, the spokesperson concluded.