Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) is planning to reach out to two million children, ages 5-12 years of beneficiary families, in 32 districts across the country, out of which 380,000 children have been admitted in primary school in different classes.
The out-of-school children would be supported for their primary education i.e. Class 1-5. A task force on education has been notified as the outcome of a meeting held between Chairperson BISP and Minister for Education Punjab. Some specific steps have been initiated to avoid overlapping in education programmes. Other provinces have also been taken on board, but response from them is still awaited. Attendance compliance is an important component of the Waseela-e-Taleem programme. The BISP monitors 70 percent attendance criteria every quarter.
In the process, the BISP has carried out supply capacity issues of provincial government schools, besides sharing the attendance data with provincial governments; consequently the number of non-functional schools has declined and existing school capacity issues reduced. The organisation has also set up a fraud detection committee, which has been assigned the task of gathering and investigating fraud related cases and proposing necessary action against the culprits.
The fraud related cases include BISP''s own staff as well as other people notably middlemen who allegedly deprive the beneficiaries of their right to cash transfers or demand money in return for transferring funds out of any of the BISP programmes. Strict action as per the laws is under process on fraud cases, BISP maintains.
At the moment, the BISP is serving more than 4.9 million beneficiaries through income support of Rs 1,500 per month under unconditional cash transfer programme. So far, the BISP has disbursed Rs 290.6 billion among beneficiaries, in which Rs 69 billion disbursed during three quarters of financial year (From July 1, 2014 to March 31, 2015), whereas quarter four, April to June 2015, payment is yet to be disbursed.
The organisation is also planning to establish a direct liaison with women beneficiaries in order to curtail the middle-man corrupt mafia and to dignify the lives of the beneficiaries. Currently, there is no system of integrated complaint between partner banks and the BISP which causes service delivery issues to the beneficiaries. Additionally, there is no mechanism of monitoring bank related complaints by the organisation. As such efforts have been started for the establishment of such a sophisticated technology based solution. Preliminary technology level meetings have been held with banks and timelines for making the system operational are being developed. Once established, the BISP claims that the organisation and the banks would use the same system on daily basis to resolve beneficiary complaints in an effective and efficient manner.