ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to take action against those officials who have been reaping benefits from the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) as documents revealed that 2,543 government officials from grade 17 to 21 were listed as beneficiaries under the welfare scheme.
Few days ago, Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar had announced the removal of 820,000 ‘undeserving’ beneficiaries.
According to the documents, high-ranking officials from the centre and four provinces were reaping benefits from the scheme.
Dr Nishtar said that new people would be included in place of those removed and the BISP list would be scrutinised every year.
In Sindh, 342 officials of grade-18 gained profit from the scheme, while six officers of the BISP also registered in the programme to gain benefits.
The documents revealed that most of the officials were registered under the names of their wives, whereas, the highest number of undeserving beneficiaries was seen from Balochistan with 741 registered officials.
Earlier, Dr Nishtar had shared in a post on Twitter that the federal government had given approval for removing 820,165 BISP beneficiaries.
“Using forensic data analysis, we found that they [the beneficiaries] were ineligible for [income] support based on the criteria,” she had tweeted. She had claimed that the exclusion would save Rs16 billion annually.
“The entire procedure for inclusion in BISP has been made apolitical,” she said. BISP beneficiaries have been receiving Rs5,000 per quarter since 2011, she shared.