Dr Sania Nishtar, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Chairperson Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), said on Wednesday that Kifaalat Programme is being launched from tomorrow (Friday) by Prime Minister Imran Khan with Rs 2,000 monthly stipend to 7 million poorest women of the country.
Talking to a select group of journalists, she said, "Seven million households are being targeted in 70 districts under the Kifaalat Programme. We have begun by enrolling one million families in 70 districts. These families will start receiving Kifaalat stipends from February to March 2020 and more beneficiary families will be added through desk registration over the course of time."
Nishtar added that other districts will be covered by the end of the year and all existing eligible beneficiaries of BISP will continue to be part of Kifaalat Programme. Beneficiaries are being identified through a household survey and through Ehsaas NADRA Desk Registration Centers assisted by SMS and Kifaalat web-service, she added.
She further said that at least one desk registration center has been established in each tehsil and only the destitute are eligible under Kifaalat. The government servants and their spouses, taxpayers, car owners, and people with history of multiple foreign travels are not eligible under Kifaalat. Data analytics will be used to exclude individuals on these parameters, she added.
Dr Nishtar said that payment will be made through the new biometric Ehsaas Digital Payment System which will ensure transparency in payments and women will draw money from Point of Sales (PoS) agents, dedicated branches and biometric enabled ATMs of Habib Bank and Alfalah Bank.
Dr Nishtar said that biometrically enabled ATMs have been opened for the first time, which means that women will not be hostage to POS agents and touts who used to deduct money from them, fraudulently.
She added that designated bank branches have been opened for these poor women for the first time so that they can draw money with dignity and each woman will have a bank account linked to her mobile phone to enable her to access economic opportunities.
She further stated that Kifaalat Programme is also a financial inclusion initiative as each woman will get a bank account, under the Prime Minister's "One Woman One Bank Account" initiative, which will pave the way for their formal interaction with the economy.
Nishtar added that through a parallel Ehsaas policy initiative, women will get better access to smart phones, as a step towards digital inclusion and Kifaalat initiative is part of the wider Ehsaas Programme; hence women will have better access to opportunities to graduate themselves out of poverty. She further stated that in the 2nd phase, rest of the districts will be covered.
She said that under the previous programme BISP, the database on which payments were being made was 10 years old and there was no mechanism of desk/web registration, in case, a house was missed in the survey, or if the socio-economic situation of a household changed.
There was no use of data analytics in beneficiary identification and the contract with banks, which formed the basis of payments, was 10 years old and there were also a lot of issues with the payment system, she added.