Provision of Visa cards to IDPs: BISP, UBL ink agreement

The Benazir Income Support Programme has signed an agreement with United Bank Limited (UBL) to pay benefits to 318,126 families of Swat and Malakand through visa cards. The process to issue these cards to the IDPs will be initiated in the first week of December, official sources told APP here Thursday.
The UBL visa cards will be distributed through five service centres established at Timergara, Mingora, Shangla, Batakhel and Peshawar, besides providing proper guidelines for effective use of the cards. Moreover, 100 franchises will be established in the Malakand division to get payment by the visa card. An initial payment of Rs 6000 will be made from the franchises and then the families will get payment of Rs 1000 through these cards on monthly basis. Approximately, Rs 3.82 billion will be distributed amongst the IDPs families.
Meanwhile, under the `National Poverty Survey' under BISP will start by the end of December to ascertain the percentage of poor in the country, and enhance living standard of the poor. The pilot project of the survey has been completed in 15 poorest districts of all the provinces including Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Northern Areas. The survey was carried out in the districts including Musakhel, Kila Saifullah and Kech/Turbat of Balochistan, Lakky Marwat, Karak and Batgram of NWFP, Layyah, Mianwali, Multan, Pakpatan of Punjab, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Tharparkar of Sindh, and Poonch of AJK, Ghanchae and Diamir districts of Northern Areas. The method of "Poverty Scorecard", approved by World Bank was used to identify poor families while some $60 million were financed by the WB for the test phase.
Under BISP emergency relief package, certain measures have been taken to benefit FATA/Swat IDPs, Balochistan earthquake affectees and victims of bomb blasts. A total of Rs 28 million has been paid to 3965 families from FATA and Bajaur, while Rs 26 million were distributed among 3729 earthquake affected families in Balochistan. Data of the bomb blast victims have been obtained and benefits will be paid to the next of kin, in case of a deceased person and the victim, in case of injury. So far, 266 victim families have been registered and approximately Rs 540,000 have been paid. The registration of the remaining families is in process and will be completed by end of the month.