ISLAMABAD, 17 JAN (DNA) – President Mamnoon Hussain has called for expansion of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) to far-flung areas. He was addressing launching ceremony of BISP Impact Assessment Report in Islamabad on Tuesday. The impact evaluation was carried out by a third party Oxford Policy Management that highlighted the positive outcomes of the South Asia’s largest social safety net besides pointing out the challenges for their onward redressal in the future.
Chairperson BISP Marvi Memon, Special Assistant to PM Khawaja Zaheer Ahmed, Secretary Yasmeen Masood, parliamentarians and representatives of development sector and BISP officers attended the event. The impact report revealed that BISP has reduced the poverty rate by seven percent points and was leading to an increase in per adult equivalent monthly food consumption by Rs69 driven by higher quality of protein.
The programme, now serving around 5.4 million women through Rs 115 billion fund, has led to decrease in deprivation against indicators of living standards among beneficiaries.
President Mamnoon appreciated the BISP for having a critical eye on its performance and expressed pleasure over the increasing reach of the programme to the poor of far flung areas. He hoped that a successful execution of the programme would lead to the swift alleviation of the poverty and make the beneficiaries self-reliant enabling them to play their role in national development.
President Mamnoon said BISP had not only become the largest social welfare programme of South Asia but was also counted among the world’s largest and most effective programmes. Quoting the report, the president observed that consequent to the government’s sincere efforts, the number of beneficiary families had increased from 1.7 million to 5.5 million with the government’s budgetary allocation also increasing from Rs16 billion to Rs115 billion.
President Mamnoon Hussain, who is also the patron-in-chief of the BISP, said the programme had also introduced biometrics identification system that would remove the possibilities of corruption and help to transfer of the amount to the deserving women. “These steps manifest the government’s love for the people, good intentions and sincere efforts to uplift the living standard of the deprived segment of society,” he said.
The president suggested that in its next evaluation report, the BISP should take into consideration the training sessions for the BISP beneficiaries that would not only make financially self-dependent and would also bring a good repute to Pakistan. He said the objective of BISP’s Waseela-e-Taleem programme was to bring the poor children into mainstream that had so far enrolled 1.3 million. He hoped that the education component of the BISP would help improve literacy rate in the country.
Chairperson Marvi Memon said the BISP never concealed its evaluation from the public thus uploaded those on the official website as they had been accountable to people, leadership as well as the parliament.
She was pleased to note that evaluation report had indicated improvement in the BISP working and outcomes. She said even the world was learning from the working of the BISP for what the staffers deserved congratulations. She said the PML-N government had increased the budgetary allocation from Rs 40 billion to Rs 115 billion for the BISP that was the brainchild of finance minister Ishaq Dar. – DNA
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