Waseela-e-Haq’s main objective was to provide and enhance small business and entrepreneurship among the underprivileged. PHOTO: PID
Waseela-i-Rozgar, Waseela-i-Haq and Waseela-e-Sehat launched under the BISP by the PPP government with fanfare, “have been closed due to operational and management issues”.
The BISP board in its report said these programmes were initiated without proper working. “Weak in design, the initiatives lacked proper monitoring and they overlapped with other federal and provincial schemes,” the board said.
Interestingly, no action has been taken against those who had formulated these schemes or executed them. Merely closing the programmes without any accountability of those who had been involved in running these schemes for years also leaves a big question mark on the current government’s claim that it closed them on account of transparency issues.
The PPP on the other hand has decided to take up this and some other issues in the National Assembly after Eidul Fitr which, according to it, was affecting ‘pro-poor’ schemes.
While talking to The Express Tribune, PPP’s central leader Noor Alam Khan strongly criticised this move of the PML-N government and said this government has made it a tradition either to close schemes meant to benefit poor people or slashes down their budget drastically.
“This is quite unfortunate that the PML-N government is against the schemes which were initiated for poorest of the poor. Not only these schemes but other projects which were meant for poor people were either closed down or their budget was cut down by the present regime which reflects its mind-set.”
“Opposition Leader Khurshid Shah will talk and lodge protest in the next session of the National Assembly after Eid over the government’s action,” he maintained.
Khan said it is beyond imagination how a project or a scheme may be overlapping in the present computerised environment. He said if there were errors then they should have been addressed instead of closing them down, and this move of the government will affect poor citizens badly.
At present some 5.2 million beneficiaries of the BISP are getting Rs4,700 on a quarterly basis and closing down these schemes mean these beneficiaries would be affected either way.
Although these schemes have been shut down, they continue to appear on the BISP website, reflecting the state of inefficiency of the organisation.
Under the Waseela-e-Rozgar scheme, the BISP was supposed to give vocational training to its beneficiaries in around 80 trades -- including courses of auto electrician, beautician, auto mechanic, computer operator, X-Ray technician, welding, sanitary fitter, tractor mechanic among others.
Waseela-e-Haq’s main objective was to provide and enhance small business and entrepreneurship among the underprivileged.
Under the Waseela-e-Sehat scheme, the BISP had launched Group Life Insurance Scheme for BISP beneficiaries to cover breadwinner of a family. Dependents of the deceased were compensated for Rs100,000 in case of natural or accidental death of the breadwinner.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 6th, 2016.
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