Benazir Income Support Program Database Revised Removing over 800,000 Beneficiaries.

The special assistant to PM on social welfare informed on Tuesday that Government has approved the removal of 820,165 names from availing Benazir Income Support Program. However, the decision is taken at a cabinet meeting and Dr Sania Nishtar confirmed it that the database of the BISP was being revised to exclude “undeserving” persons As […] The post Benazir Income Support Program Database Revised Removing over 800,000 Beneficiaries. appeared first on Nation Bytes.

Jul 22, 2020 - 16:54 Updated: Jul 22, 2020 - 16:54
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Benazir Income Support Program Database Revised Removing over 800,000 Beneficiaries.

The special assistant to PM on social welfare informed on Tuesday that Government has approved the removal of 820,165 names from availing Benazir Income Support Program. However, the decision is taken at a cabinet meeting and Dr Sania Nishtar confirmed it that the database of the BISP was being revised to exclude “undeserving” persons

As per the data released by Dr. Nishtar, 153,302 beneficiaries are being removed from the BISP because they traveled abroad once. Also, 193,364 because their spouses traveled abroad; 10,476 because they traveled abroad more than once, and 166,319 because their spouses traveled abroad more than once. Number of people have criticized the decision stating this is a flawed metric for exclusion, as it is fairly common for low-income Pakistanis to travel abroad for pilgrimage. Many of these trips are paid for by relatives as a gift and do not suggest a lack of poverty.

BISP was launched in July 2008, and currently, it is the country’s largest single social safety net programme with around 5.4 million beneficiaries.

“We are shifting to a cent per cent digital system as the previous card system expired on December 15. Women could now use biometric ATM and the details of cash withdrawals will be available on our screens. We will encourage women for self-sufficiency, whereas the stipend is linked with the inflation rate

Furthermore, Dr. Nishtar announced that there will be data analysis to asses the eligibility on a frequent basis. In addition, Dr. Nishtar said that govt will be able to save 16 billion rupees on an annual basis by removing these 820,000 names.

She also announced that the amount of stipend had been increased from Rs5,000 to Rs5,500 under the Ehsas Kifalat programme.

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