Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The World Bank (WB) has expressed its resentment over Benazir Income Support Programme’s failure to maintain the beneficiary data and sought a report on the increasing complaints about the programme.

Keeping in view the prevailing situation, the WB may delay an Rs60 billion grant for the programme, popularly known as BISP. If this happens, some 7.7 million people benefiting from the programme would face problems. The programme was launched in 2008 with the financial assistance of the WB to provide relief to poverty-stricken people. In the beginning, Rs1,000 was given per family per month, but later this month amount was increased to Rs1,500 per family.

The incumbent government assured the WB that it would submit up to date data of the programme beneficiaries, but it could not do this despite a lapse of more than two years. The WB has written to the government and programme Chairperson Marvi Memon to address people’s complaints about distribution of funds; otherwise, it would stop the funding.

The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Information Technology made tall claims about smooth functioning of the programme and a biometric system to check irregularities, but people were still complaining about the distribution of funds. Memon inducted two IT experts against hefty salaries to resolve the issue, but they could not give the desired results. The government did not make any effort to streamline the programme. It is worth mentioning that the total funding for the programme has reached Rs90 billion and hundreds of thousands of people are benefiting from it every month. A well-organised mafia at the programme is minting millions of rupees from simple people through fake text messages, but no action is being taken against it.

On the other hand, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has removed the names of about 250,000 deserving people from the list of beneficiaries in Punjab and Sindh. This move is aimed at benefiting the PML-N workers.

Programme bosses said that hundreds of people who robbed the beneficiaries had been arrested. They said that names of the people who did not deserve this fund would be removed from the beneficiaries’ list. They said that all steps were being taken for transparency in the programme. When programme authorities were contacted to comment on the WB concerns, there was no response from their side.