BISP scam: Nadra provides data of 282 govt officials to FIA

PESHAWAR: As many as 78 officers of grade-17 and above have surrendered their Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) cards as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) accelerated action against 343 officers of various government departments who had allegedly been availing financial support meant for the destitute and deserving people.

“The data of 282 officers of grade-17 and above who were receiving the monthly stipend has been provided by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to the FIA. Among them, 16 officials were directly receiving the BISP stipend while 327 were getting it through spouses,” a source told The News on Monday.

The source said a total of 115 officers from different districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been questioned by the FIA teams and 78 of them have returned their BISP cards. “The FIA KP has written to the headquarters seeking direction about the method of recovery from these officials and the punitive action to be initiated against them either by registration of cases or through departmental action,” said the source.

The FIA across the country has launched an inquiry into the cases of 2,037 government officers who had been availing the monthly BISP stipend which was launched for the needy people. Some of the officers were getting the financial support directly while the spouses of the remaining were enrolled to get the stipend. According to the officials, 343 officers or their spouses benefited from the BISP programme in KP, 554 in Balochistan, 101 in Punjab and 938 in Sindh. “The majority of the recipient officers are from the Education or Health department. The 16 officers who were directly receiving the stipend are all female,” the source added. The source revealed that 77 of these officers belonged to Peshawar and 33 of them have been summoned by the FIA so far. In Mardan, the source added, 103 officers were illegally getting the stipend and 17 of them have been summoned and questioned. The number of beneficiary officers from Bannu was 60 and 34 of them have already been questioned by the FIA. All the five officers in Abbottabad and 11 in Dera Ismail Khan have appeared before the FIA officials and face questioning.

The monthly stipend was launched in 2008 for supporting the poor families across the country. They were provided the amount through the General Post Office and later through their respective ATM cards. Over 5 million deserving males and females in the country are getting the monthly stipend under the BISP.