Details of 14,730 ineligible BISP beneficiaries to be shared with govt depts:

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Sania Nishtar Friday said the details of the 14,730 government employees out of total 820,165 undeserving beneficiaries of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) identified in a recent move to make this programme more transparent will be sent to their relevant departments for further legal action.

She said that her division will also take necessary action against all the undeserving beneficiaries.

In an interview with APP, Sania Nishtar informed that majority of the cases (33.81 per cent) of undeserving beneficiaries were found in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa followed by 29.67 in Punjab, 22.32 in Sindh, 5.52 in Balochistan, 5.0 in erstwhile FATA, 2.12 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 1.01 and 0.26 percent in Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad respectively.

In her tweet, she has also elaborated that a total of 277,266 beneficiaries belonging to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were declared ineligible, including 243,380 from Punjab, 183,042 from Sindh, 45,280from Balochistan, 43,445 from FATA, 17,361 from Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 8,297 from Gilgit-Baltistan and 2,094 from Islamabad.

She said, "The exit of undeserving beneficiaries in BISP will pave the way for the most deserving to be included. Let me assure all, this will be done in an objective manner. Data audit train for each case excluded and included will be available."

She told this agency that the programme includingWaseela-i-Rozgar, Waseela-i-Haq and Waseela-e-Sehat launched under BISP in the year 2008 were also closed due to the issues of mismanagement and corruption.

Commenting on Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari criticism over excluding 8,00,000 individuals from BISP, Sania Nishtar said we should avoid doing politics in some areas and always give statements while keeping national interest supreme.

“Our own interest lies in progress of national institutions and strengthening these institutions is indispensable for improving the lives of poor citizens of our country,” she observed.

Sania Nishtar said the present government in line with the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan is taking solid measures to make this programme more transparent and effective.

Digital payment mechanism with bio-metric verification is in place now for the BISP beneficiaries that will reduce the chances of identity theft and fraudulent withdrawals, she said.