Six million (one million families) out of 20 million affected by the devastating floods in Pakistan are beneficiaries of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), informed sources revealed exclusively to Business Recorder. These one million families will be provided BISP livelihood one time cash grant of Rs 12,000 each.
Initially, an amount of Rs two billion has been earmarked for the purpose while the total cost of the package is estimated at around Rs 11.75 billion. BISP is providing initial one time assistance of Rs 12,000 to every cardholder in three instalments of Rs 4,000 each, said a spokesman of BISP, here on Thursday. He said that the first instalment of around Rs 3.9 billion has been released to the payment agencies including Pakistan Post and UBL for disbursement to the beneficiaries. Disbursement of cash is likely to start by next week.
He said that BISP has collected data from each and every union council, tehsil and district affected by flood from National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs), adding that the data was tallied with the database of BISP and it was found that six million BISP beneficiaries have been affected by the flood.
Giving a break up of the area-wise affectees, the spokesman said out of 42,380 beneficiary families of AJK, 26,456 have been affected by floods and will be given livelihood cash grant of Rs 317 million. In Balochistan 131,634 families are registered with BISP, out of which 38,627 were affected by floods that will be provided Rs 464 million as grant of Rs 12,000 each. He further said that all 24,366 BISP beneficiaries in Gilgit-Baltistan are affected by floods and will be provided Rs 292 million grant. In Punjab, out of 1.05 million about 235,986 have been affected by floods and will be given Rs 2.832 billion as grant.
The official said that in Sindh, out of 577,918 BISP beneficiaries, 242,304 have been affected by floods and will be provided Rs 2.908 billion as grant. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 376,562 BISP beneficiaries were affected by floods out of total 394,334 beneficiaries who will be provided Rs 4.519 billion as grant, he said, adding that in Fata and FRs, 34,587 BISP beneficiaries were affected by flood who will be provided Rs 415 million as grant.
The total grant of Rs 11.75 billion is to be given to total 978,888 BISP beneficiary families and would be additional support to the regular stipend being given to the BISP cardholders.
Responding to a question about lost CNICs and smart cards by affected people, the BISP spokesman said Nadra has made special arrangements for quick delivery of duplicate CNICs to affected people. He said that special BISP cells have also been set up at Nadra Swift Registration Centers (NSRCs) to facilitate those beneficiaries who have lost their CNICs.
He informed that people are being motivated to visit Nadra offices for duplicate CNICs, and BISP has launched a campaign for the purpose. BISP is shifting to electronic payment to BISP beneficiaries, as there were various complaints of maltreatment by postmen of beneficiaries. He said that the SOPs for delivery of money orders have been revised and Pakistan post has been directed to make special arrangements.
The mode of payment, he added, is being changed and now, beneficiaries would be given Benazir Smart Card and they can get payment through ATM, he said, adding that this new mechanism has enabled the BISP to execute payments in a shorter span of time, ensuring real time reconciliation of payments. Payment through the Smart Card is being initiated in four districts on pilot basis. The cards are being issued by Nadra and payments are made by a bank through a network of franchisees and a core banking application, he said.
Comments
Comments are closed.