Country's 35 million population living below the poverty line: certain drawbacks pinpointed

The country's 35 million population is living below the poverty line and Pakistan Bait-ul-Maals Food Support Programme (FSP), Individual Financial Assistance (IFA) under the Ministry of Social Welfare have recorded certain drawbacks pertaining to community involvement, excessive documentation and heavy bureaucratic conditions.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday that in case of Pakistan Bait-ul-Maal poverty reduction programmes certain discretions were recorded in decision-making and virtual absence of community involvement.
The FSP programme is a cash transfer programme that provides Rs 3000 to beneficiaries in one annual instalment to allow them to meet their basic nutritional needs, however, excessive documentation and slow implementation have nullified its impact, they said.
Food Support Programme uses a combination of geographical and administrative targeting and funds are allocated to provinces and regions according to an approved quota of beneficiaries on the basis of population not the number of the poor, they said.
Assistance is primarily provided to the individuals having no income and facing major ailments, disability, widows with dependant children, invalid with dependant children, infirm senior citizens above 65, orphans, destitutes, victims of unpredictable circumstances and the poorest of the poor to be reviewed periodically for rehabilitation, they said.
Beneficiary households are selected by a task force nominated by PBM's district committee which is dominated by public officials and the only criteria provided to the task force is to ensure that all selected households are below the poverty line, they said.
On the other hand, IFA is a combination of geographic and administrative techniques and funds are first allocated according to the poverty profile of the provinces and aid is made available to the needy on first-come- first-served basis. However, the final decision is taken by the PBM government officials, they said.
Ineligibles are the government employees and their family members, beneficiaries of other social welfare agencies, false declaration or provision of wrong information may result in recoveries and permanent ineligibility or will be debarred from all PBM schemes, they said.
National Centres for Rehabilitation of Child Labour (NCsRCL) have been established countrywide where children between the age of 5-14 years are weaned away from hazardous labour and enrolled in the centres and they are provided free education, books and stationary and each student receives Rs 10 daily. Moreover, parents receive Rs 300 per month subsistence allowance as wage compensation, they said.
Feasibility for opening of these schools are the existence of hazardous industry, bonded labour in brick-kiln, carpet, mining, tannery, construction, glass bangle, domestic work, begging, agriculture and other and availability of 120 children up to the age of 14.
However, only 150 centres could not meet the required needs as establishing more centres in the country is need of the hour as high number of street children collecting stuff from garbage, innocent girl children begging on the roads and in chowks wiping the cars and begging for their livelihoods.