KARACHI: The Special Assistant to Prime on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection, Dr Sania Nishtar, has announced that the quarterly stipend under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) is being increased from Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000.
The special assistant to the prime minister stated this on Saturday while talking to a large number of women beneficiaries of BISP at a Khuli Kachehri in Malir, Karachi. The project is an income support initiative of the federal government. Nishtar said that the stipend was being increased in view of the desire of Prime Minister Imran Khan that the government should benefit the deserving people in the country. Furthermore, she said the increased sum of stipend would be dispensed as monthly installments and every beneficiary would get Rs 2,000 in the first week of each month. Nishtar said that every woman beneficiary of the programme would have a bank account as special arrangements have been made for evolving this banking system. She said the women beneficiaries would be able to draw the BISP stipend while using an ATM card.
The special assistant to the prime minister said that the government would especially focus on women belonging to poor segments and would soon initiate a “Kifalat programme” to massively benefit them. The special assistant to the prime minister strongly denied the impression that deserving people were being removed from the rolls of the BISP’s beneficiaries. Nishtar said that some 1,40,000 grade 1-16 government employees were fraudulently benefitting from the BISP including those of the postal service. She said that a list of such officers has been sent to provincial chief secretaries to proceed against them. Nishtar said that action had been taken against four grade-17 officers and an inquiry against two more officers is underway. She said that a sum of Rs 400,000 was recovered from these officers and deposited into the national exchequer. Dr Sania Nishtar said that she often disguised herself in a Burqa (veil) to visit Islamabad to gain firsthand knowledge about the beneficiaries of the BISP in the capital city.