Bajaur women denied Kafalat payouts

Decision invites criticism from tribal elders

BAJAUR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has removed around 26,000 women from the Ehsaas Kafalat Programme in Bajaur tribal district of the province without any valid reason.

Reliable sources told The Express Tribune that these 26,000 women had been included in the Benazir Income Support Programme by the Pakistan Peoples Party’s government and now government had removed them without assigning any reason.

“The government has a policy that those destitute women who receive aid for 10 years from the government, their condition improves automatically so all such names have been removed in the recent Socio Economic Survey,” said an official of the government while talking to The Express Tribune.

A local resident of Bajuar, Abdul Kabir Khan said that he was jobless and his wife’s name had also been removed from the income support program, leaving him completely penniless.

It is worth mentioning here that all the names recently removed had been included in the program in the year 2010-11. In 2010 a survey was conducted called Poverty Score Card in which 50,000 people were found eligible for cash support. Later all those people were removed who owned a car or vehicle, had a large bank account, had pensions, government jobs or who travel abroad. This left 44,000 women in the program.

“Recently a survey was conducted called Socio Economic Survey which increased the number of these people from 44,000 to 80,000. Now suddenly government has decided to reduce the number of people and 26,000 women have been removed from the Ehsaas Kafalat Programme,” said the official, adding that Bajur and Mohmand are two of the poorest tribal districts in the province.

“Bajaur is a poor district as well as hit hard by the wave of militancy. Each day thousands of women visits Civil Colony, Khar trying to convince the officials to include them back in the program and restore their ATMs cards and accounts,” he added.

Local tribal elders have demanded of the government to reconsider their decision.

“If a name has been put on the list by mistake and she doesn’t deserve it then remove such names but the wholesale removal of 26,000 women who previously received aid is unfortunate,” said a local elder Aurangzeb.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2021.