‘BISP will soon be among top social security programmes of the world’

Karachi

The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) serves over 5.3 million women and provides stipends of Rs4700 every three months as per a survey conducted in 2010 which is internationally ranked at number five, said BISP chairperson and Minister of State Marvi Memon during a press conference held at the Karachi Press Club on Monday.

She said the budget of the BISP had been increased from Rs40 billion to Rs115 billion due to the commitment of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar and the Pakistan Muslim League—Nawaz (PML—N) government to poverty alleviation.

The BISP chairperson informed that the new poverty survey of the BISP was being done in line with the international best practice of resurvey after 5 years.

“BISP aims to be the pride of Pakistan and be the number one in the world through this survey.”

Memon said the process had been initiated in 2015 when she took the charge of the BISP as Chairperson.  “The process took one year of preparation because provinces were being consulted as well as technical international evaluations were also being made.”

The minister added that the new survey would help enter the names of those people who were facing severe financial crises but were not included so far in the BISP and also exclude the names of the ones who were earlier included in the programme and now they were not living hand to mouth.

She reiterated that the survey was not being conducted because of corruption related issues as highlighted by a certain segment of media.

“For corruption issues, an internal audit department has been set up and the biometric system is being launched from September 2016 for the transfer of payments.”

Discussing the details of the new survey, the BISP head said the pilot phase of the survey had been initiated in Haripur district on June 15, 2016.

“In 2016, as many as 16 districts will be covered. The rest of Pakistan will be covered in 2017 and early 2018 – well before the next general elections.”

To make the survey flawless, she added, electronic gadgets were being used instead of paper forms and.

“It has an operational review process for double checked data. The local governments, media and the civil society have been provided with the access to a hotline for complaints so that the survey details can be improved.  “The Poverty Means Test and the scorecard methodology have been technically improved and filters have been added. The survey is testing the desk based approach where women come to desks in each union council. Door to door approach is also being employed.”

Talking about the improvement in the payment procedures, the minister said the Pakistan Post was initially used in 2008 for payments to beneficiaries.

“Later on, smart cards and mobile phone banking were used. Now, the BISP has moved on to Debit cards/ATM cards and 94percent of the payments are being made electronically.”

Memon said the Pakistan Post had good reach but transparency issues existed in the system.

“From 2.4 million, the number has been reduced to just over 300,000 beneficiaries receiving payment from the Pakistan Post and this number will be further reduced.”

She added that efforts were also being made to make the system biometric for proof of payment and those found in malpractices were being charged.

“Recoveries from them have also been initiated.”

She informed that at present, as many as 11 districts were covered through the Pakistan Post, 122 through BDC ATMs, one via mobile banking, and five via biometric payment mechanism.

“In September 2016, the biometric system of verification will be started which would take one year to cover the entire Pakistan and make the system safe and efficient.”

The BISP chairperson also said the internal audit department gave periodic reports for each department and district and immediate action was taken if there was any connivance among bank, ATM guards, agents and the BISP officials.

“The data sanity exercise discovered 125,714 wrong updated accounts. Their payments were stopped and legal action was taken. Complaints received related to fraudulent SMS were 16,255. Over 7,000 numbers have been blocked and the FIA has been asked to intervene.”