"About 27 million families in the country are living below the poverty line, while poverty in Sindh has increased in comparison to other provinces due to floods." This was stated by the chairperson of BISP Farzana Raja while addressing a press conference here at Media Cell of PPP on Tuesday. Sindh Information and Power Minister Shazia Atta Marri accompanied her on the occasion.
Farzana said that in result of poverty survey conducted by professionals, about 2.4 million families of Sindh have been registered at Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) for financial assistance, while, 1.9 million families have been registered in Punjab, 1.3 million families in KP, 0.365 million families from Balochistan, about 80,000 families from Azad Kashmir and more than 30,000 families from Gilgit-Baltistan have been registered at BISP after the poverty survey, she said.
She said that poverty survey was initiated in Sindh after the floods of last year that's why it was disclosed that poverty has increased in Sindh in comparison of other three provinces. She said that BISP would provide life insurance of 0.1 million to every registered family with vocational trainings to women and youngsters of same families.
She said that BISP has been planning to provide various types of training to about 1.5 million youngsters of registered families which would be initiated very soon. She said that BISP is running with foreign financial assistance and the pilot project about "to educate 1 million children" would also be started very soon.
About Shah Mehmood Qureshi's joining of PTI, Farzana said that as she had worked with Qureshi in Punjab, she could say that he would not remain with Imran for long. She said that some individuals have always tried to sabotage the democratic system of the country but they proved failure in this regard and PPP is leading the country with democratic government.
She condemned the statement of Qureshi against President Zardari and said that nukes of Pakistan are in safe hands. She said that PPP 's Co-chairman has always followed the reconciliation policy of Benazir Bhutto and all government allies are striving for betterment of the country.