Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has directed the management of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) to design a comprehensive graduation programme to enable the beneficiaries of earning their own livelihoods. A meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, after a briefing on current beneficiaries of cash transfer under BISP and Waseela-e-Taleem beneficiaries as well as pilot programme of National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) survey in 14 districts, approved a proposal for setting up of an endowment fund. The fund for BISP would ensure fiscal continuity and act as a catalyst in generating income for supporting various development schemes.
The Prime Minister was informed by Chairperson Marvi Memon and other senior officials of BISP that 5.6 million families have so far benefited from cash transfer and 1.8 million children through Waseela-e-Taleem program. The meeting also informed that after successful completion of pilot phase in four districts and door-to-door survey in ten districts, National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) survey would be rolled out in the remaining districts of the country in February 2018 and would be completed by May 2018.
Sources said that current use of NSER proposal was presented to the BISP Board on July 15, 2017 and board advised to constitute advisory committee for consultation as well as establish value for money for door-to-door and self-registration approach in pilot phase. They added that consultation committee included poverty experts, provincial representatives and experts from development sector to carry out NSRE. The main objective of door-to-door drive is to cover 100 percent of the households.
Sources further stated that current use of NSER is unconditional cash transfer and other initiatives of BISP. Additionally, NSER data is being used for other federal and provincial government programs including Prime Minister's Health Insurance Program, Prime Minister's interest free loans, Punjab Khidmat Card as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Insaf Card, Balochistan food department for food subsidies and Sindh finance department, Sindh Education Foundation, and Gilgit-Baltistan Secretariat.
The NSER data is also a prerequisite for effective policymaking and every program, including government, semi-government and non- government, will benefit from NSER data to avoid duplication of benefits, introduce efficiency in all social protection programs across the country and convert from un-targeted to targeted subsidies as well as to ascertain exact number of population affected by disasters, including floods, earthquakes, etc, for direct and effective interventions.
A statement said the Prime Minister was informed that international community, donors and developmental partners including Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Department for International Development (DFID) have reposed confidence in the transparency and effectiveness of the program in reaching out to the poorest of the poor and helping them break shackles of poverty. The meeting was attended by chairperson BISP Marvi Memon, Secretary to Prime Minister Fawad Hasan Fawad, secretary BISP and senior officers of BISP.
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