'Question mark on BISP'

Apropos an editorial "Question mark on BISP" published in Business Recorder on January 09, 2017, it is highlighted that the idea of Benazir Income Support Programme, the flagship social safety net of Pakistan, was conceived in 2008 by the then and current Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar. Currently, BISP is providing stipends of Rs 4,834 quarterly to 5.4 million poorest households for food, health and clothing requirements.
Being a poverty management tool, BISP has made significant contributions towards poverty alleviation as well. As per impact evaluation reports by Oxford Policy Management (OPM), BISP has a positive impact on poverty reduction.
The annual budget of the programme has increased from Rs 16 billion in 2008 to Rs 115 billion for the fiscal year 2016-17. Out of this, only Rs 18 billion are being funded by all development partners that include Asian Development Bank, Department for International Development (DFID) and World Bank. So, the major contribution for BISP comes directly from the Pakistani taxpayers instead of foreign aid as assumed publicly. The editorial states that DFID was donating 200 million pounds a year, which is contrary to the facts, as DFID has disbursed 180 million pounds over the past four years. The total disbursements from DFID for the project are 279 million over a period of 8 years, which means that around 100 million will be disbursed by DFID in the next 4 years.
BISP enjoys very strong working relationship with its development partners. The donor agencies hold regular review missions giving technical and policy inputs. Department for International Development (DFID), in its Annual Review Report 2015/16 commended the performance of BISP by rating the overall performance of the programme as A.
The challenges in the programme have never been taken lightly. Over the past two years, BISP has embarked on payment mechanism revolution to improve the transparency and efficiency of the programme. Payments through Biometric Verification System (BVS) have been launched in nine districts and would be expanded country wide soon. At present, 83.9%of beneficiaries are drawing their stipends through debit cards, 13% through biometric mechanism and 3% are receiving funds through Pakistan Post. Shifting to BVS will not only eliminate the middleman culture but also make the withdrawal process easy for the beneficiaries.
It is pertinent to mention that BISP is totally apolitical and there is zero political interference. This kind of allegations could have made some sense before 2010 when forms were distributed through parliamentarians in 2008 but after 2010-11 survey this kind of allegation is baseless. Currently a resurvey for NSER has been initiated in which highly scientific applications are being used. For social mobilisation, the local government and political representatives from all political parties have been taken on board. Their role is to mobilise people and give feedback, for the registration of the best National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) in the world.