An amount of $174 million has been earmarked for Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) in the Kerry-Lugar Bill, which is still awaited on the other hand the programme is expecting local allocation of Rs 100 billion in the upcoming budget 2011-12.
This was stated by Farzana Raja, the Chairperson of BISP, during a press conference here on Tuesday. During the current fiscal year Rs 32.5 billion have been released to BISP by the Ministry of Finance against its budgetary allocation of Rs 50 billion.
When asked about the reduction in the allocated amount released by the Finance Ministry in 2010-11, the Chairperson said, "we need the money after the completion of on-going poverty survey and we are expecting more than Rs 60 billion expenditure till the end of this fiscal year because we are expecting 3 million new families to be registered under BISP".
Farzana Raja said that Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) has decided to make this country a welfare state. "In the very beginning of BISP, we had a target to financially assist 3.5 million families giving cash grant of Rs 1000 per month but now this number has swelled to 4 million while we are expecting that till the June 30, the total number of families under BISP would reach 5-7 million".
She explained, "almost 40 million people have been enrolled so far under BISP. We have enrolled 10,000 families under Waseela-e-Haq programme of BISP. We are determined to provide the vocational training to 1.5 million families. Life insurance worth Rs 1 lac will be provided to all the families enrolled under BISP. About 1 million people have been provided insurance policy so far while additional 2 lakh would be registered till end of June".
Farzana Raja said that the international donors like Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank are very much satisfied with the performance of BISP. "This programme has the constitutional protection as well the BISP bill was passed from both the Houses of Parliament. Through this programme, we are taking a step towards the elimination of terrorism".
She said there was no political discrimination in this programme. "Even an amount of Rs 553 million has been disbursed to the beneficiaries of the family of Owais Laghari, MNA (PML-Q) as we believe in transparency and the deserving people whether they belong to PPP or any other party should be having their share in cash grants under BISP. In fact, more than 1 million families have been granted financial assistance in Punjab". The Chairperson said that the poverty survey would start in FATA on May 3.
"The opposition should always be constructive not destructive. Opposition has been talking against the security agencies like ISI in the National Assembly but one should keep in mind that the criticism might be anti-government but it should never be anti-state", the Chairperson added.
She said that due to BISP, 10 million women have been provided with Identity Cards (I.D) while for the first time in FATA, more than one lakh women have been issued I.D. cards. "We have internal as well as external audit systems and a special monitoring evaluation system for the donors as we have asked the international borrowers that the government is ready to have a third party audit as well", Farzana Raja said. The Chairperson said that for the first time in the history of Pakistan, Mobile Phone Banking has been introduced by BISP while the project regarding the health insurance for the poor families would be launched soon.
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