Social safety-net: over 6.7 million families living in extreme poverty: BISP

More than 6.7 million families across Pakistan are living in extreme poverty, Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) estimated. The social safety net project has identified. The government has also decided to extend full BISP package (including cash grants and other programme such as Waseela-e-Haq, Waseela-e-Rozgar, Waseela-e-Sehat and Waseela-e-Taleem) to families of bomb blast victims.
Documents obtained by Business Recorder showed that there were 40 million individuals in Pakistan who were living in extreme poverty. During the poverty score card survey conducted by BISP, data of almost 150 million individuals and 27 million households was collected. As much as Rs 120 billion had been disbursed to BISP beneficiaries since the inception of the social safety net project.
According to the documents, BISP had both a short-term and long-term strategies to cope with poverty. In short term strategy, so far more than Rs 120 billion had been disbursed to recipient families in cash grants. The long-term strategy titled 'Exit or Graduation Strategy' was launched to help recipients 'graduate' out of extreme poverty. This included the launch of poverty cushion programmes.
Under Waseela-e-Haq, recipients are helped to set up small businesses, provided interest-free loans of up to Rs 300,000. So far, more than 25,000 families have already become eligible. Waseela-e-Rozgar was designed to provide technical and vocational education to poor youth. The target is to train 1.5 million students in the next fiscal year (2012-13). Under Waseela-e-Sehat, Rs 100, 000 would be provided to bread-earners under life insurance. More than 4 million poor families have already been insured, while health insurance worth Rs 25,000 is being provided to the poor segment of the society under this programme.
Documents also show that the Department for International Development (DFID) will provide $100 million to BISP for Waseela-e-Taleem while the World Bank has already been provided $150 million. Under Waseela-e Taleem, three million out-of-school children of ages 5-12 years from recipient families will be sent to school. In this regard, contracts have been signed with all provinces to help them send these children to schools through cash incentives of Rs 200 per child.