Federal Minister for Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety, Shazia Marri on Thursday informed the Senate that the previous government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had initiated Ehsaas programe by removing the name of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) for political gains.
Replying to a Calling Attention Notice moved by Senator Sania Nishtar, she said that Rs 77 million were spent to erase the name of Benazir Bhutto Shaheed from the (BISP) Card. The PTI government had played a political game by renaming BISP as Ehsaas, she said and added that PTI was scared of Benazir Bhutto Shaheed’s name. The minister said that Rs 30 billion funds of BISP were also diverted to Ehsaas programme. She said that PPP government initiated its programme purely for the poor segments of the society and there was no political intention and all the stakeholders were taken on board. She said that United Nations had also applauded and appreciated this programme.
Shazia Marri said that during last four years, a successful conspiracy was hatched to increase inflation. She said that the present government would not discontinue a proposal of good targeted subsidy. She said that more than 850,000 people were excluded from the BISP programme by the previous government with mollified intentions without any proper survey. The present government has received around two lac appeals of those excluded beneficiaries of BISP, she expressed. She said that PTI was playing a dirty game on a very popular programme. She said that the target subsidy of Rs. 28 billion are being paid by the present government to people earning up to Rs 40,000 per month to save them from impacts of inflation.