Senate Body For Action Against Fake Message-senders

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd August, 2016) : Chairman of Senate Standing Committee of the Functional on Problems of Less Development Areas Tuesday directed the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) management to take action against the persons involved in sending fake messages and looting the needy. The committee, which met here under the chairmanship of Senator Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar, directed the BISP management to register FIR against the persons involved in this crime and submit a report accordingly in the next meeting.

Muhamamd Usman Khan Kakar directed the BISP to seek help from interior ministry for taking action against elements cheating the public. The body also asked the BISP to itself disburse the amount among the beneficiary families through banks as post offices are involved in curpution.

BISP Secretary Muhammad Saleem Ahmad Ranjha informed the committee that out of 5.3 million beneficiaries, five million are getting their amount through banks while remaining are receiving amount via post offices. The committee recommended opening of bank branches in the remote areas for facilitating the poor people in getting their amount. The committee directed the BISP to open its offices in every Tehsil and to fill the posts lying vacant in BISP as soon as possible. The secretary BISP said that the process to hire manpower in BISP will start in one month.

The chairman asked the BISP to complete afresh survey of the need at the earliest.

The committee expressed surprise over spending of huge amount on conducting of the survey. The chairman asked the BISP to include only deserving people in the list during on going survey. The secretary briefing the committee said that BISP has extended beneficiary coverage from 3.7 million households to 5.3 for Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT). BISP has successfully disbursed Unconditional Cash Transfer of more than Rs 250 billion among 5.3 million families across the country during last three years. He said BISP has exceeded the target of enrolling more than 1.3 million children in Primary schools through its Waseela-e-Taleem program and disbursed Rs 2.145 billion on admission and attendance compliance of these children. He said BISP developed a Management Information System (MIS) for all its operations and maintained a state of the art poverty database. The secretary said that BISP has planned to initiate re-survey across the country in phased manner, first phase of the survey has already been initiated and expected to be completed by March 2017. He said second phase is expected to be started in April 2017 and completion of the survey is expected to be completed by March 2018.