PTI govt ups Ehsaas Kifalat grant by Rs500
Dr Sania Nishtar says additional Rs8.6b will be provided to beneficiaries
Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) PHOTO: PID
ISLAMABAD:
The government has increased the quarterly cash grant for 4.3 million beneficiaries of the Ehsaas Kifalat Programme of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) from Rs5,000 rupees to Rs5,500.
In a statement, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Dr Sania Nishtar said the increase means that the government would provide additional Rs8.6 billion for cash transfer to the beneficiaries.
She said the BISP now has 4.27 million active beneficiaries after the delisting of 0.82 million “undeserving” ones.
The governments has recently removed the names of over 820,165 people from the BISP list of beneficiaries, saying that they were undeserving and their standard of living was above the criteria set for poor people.
Dr Nishtar said the BISP would save around Rs60 billion annually after the exclusion of undeserving beneficiaries from the list.
“More deserving people who fulfill the criteria laid down in the programme will be included in the [BISP] list throughout the country,” she added. The SAPM said the decision to strike names from the BISP was taken after the approval of the federal cabinet.
She said some aspects were looked into before going ahead with the move, ie, it was ascertained whether or not the family of a beneficiary owned a motorcycle or car or their spouse was a government employee.
Of the 820,165 beneficiaries removed from the BISP database, 14,730 were government employees, including workers of Railways, Post Office and the BISP even though the facility was not meant for the people working in government departments.
According to the data, Dr Nishtar said, 127,826 of them were those whose spouses were government employees. She added that 153,302 were those who had traveled abroad once and 195,364 whose spouses had traveled abroad once.
The number of beneficiaries had who had traveled abroad more than once stood at 10,476. Similarly, spouses of 166,319 beneficiaries had traveled abroad more than once.
The BISP removed 692 people from its database because they owned one or more vehicles, while 43,746 were taken off because their spouses owned one or more than one vehicles.
A person who pays a monthly telephone bill of up to Rs1,000 is not eligible to get monthly stipend from the programme and therefore 24,546 people were removed from the database for falling into this category.
Similarly, 155,767 persons were excluded from the database as their spouses paid phone bills of up to Rs1,000. The SAPM said 666 beneficiaries were removed for applying for passports via executive centres and 580 others whose spouses had done the same.
The BISP also excluded 36,970 people from the database because three or more of their family members paid executive fees for obtaining computerised national identity cards (CNICs).
The government has increased the quarterly cash grant for 4.3 million beneficiaries of the Ehsaas Kifalat Programme of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) from Rs5,000 rupees to Rs5,500.
In a statement, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Dr Sania Nishtar said the increase means that the government would provide additional Rs8.6 billion for cash transfer to the beneficiaries.
She said the BISP now has 4.27 million active beneficiaries after the delisting of 0.82 million “undeserving” ones.
The governments has recently removed the names of over 820,165 people from the BISP list of beneficiaries, saying that they were undeserving and their standard of living was above the criteria set for poor people.
Dr Nishtar said the BISP would save around Rs60 billion annually after the exclusion of undeserving beneficiaries from the list.
“More deserving people who fulfill the criteria laid down in the programme will be included in the [BISP] list throughout the country,” she added. The SAPM said the decision to strike names from the BISP was taken after the approval of the federal cabinet.
She said some aspects were looked into before going ahead with the move, ie, it was ascertained whether or not the family of a beneficiary owned a motorcycle or car or their spouse was a government employee.
Of the 820,165 beneficiaries removed from the BISP database, 14,730 were government employees, including workers of Railways, Post Office and the BISP even though the facility was not meant for the people working in government departments.
According to the data, Dr Nishtar said, 127,826 of them were those whose spouses were government employees. She added that 153,302 were those who had traveled abroad once and 195,364 whose spouses had traveled abroad once.
The number of beneficiaries had who had traveled abroad more than once stood at 10,476. Similarly, spouses of 166,319 beneficiaries had traveled abroad more than once.
The BISP removed 692 people from its database because they owned one or more vehicles, while 43,746 were taken off because their spouses owned one or more than one vehicles.
A person who pays a monthly telephone bill of up to Rs1,000 is not eligible to get monthly stipend from the programme and therefore 24,546 people were removed from the database for falling into this category.
Similarly, 155,767 persons were excluded from the database as their spouses paid phone bills of up to Rs1,000. The SAPM said 666 beneficiaries were removed for applying for passports via executive centres and 580 others whose spouses had done the same.
The BISP also excluded 36,970 people from the database because three or more of their family members paid executive fees for obtaining computerised national identity cards (CNICs).