Kunri residents accuse BISP of fostering corruption

The Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) which was rolled out to provide unconditional cash handouts to the extremely poor has become a serious form of corruption and tool of humiliation for poor women due to government’s inattention, said community leaders of Kunri, a major town of the Umerkot district in the greater Tharparkar Desert.

The village women do not know how to operate the automated teller machines (ATMs) due to which agents sitting outside ask them to pay Rs500 to withdraw the allocated sum of Rs3,000, said Abdul Moneem Khan, an educationist and community mobiliser.

For online wallet payments, the device owners take a cut of up to Rs1,500 from the poverty-hit women while expressing shock that “the government had chosen to turn a blind eye to corruption at the grass-root level.” He claimed that unscrupulous BISP officials, local administration, police, device owners, and their agents are active at the BISP device shops and ATMs in the banks at various places.

Some of these characters sometime deprive women of the entire amount, said local Anwar Arain.

Arain said that some policemen were in the habit of harassing women gathered at ATMs.

“They perform lewd acts and humiliate the women, who stay silent out of fear of further disgrace, he said.

He said some officials promise these women greater compensation to rob them of the entire amount.

They demanded action against corrupt officers and device owners and to provide due protection to women withdrawing cash under the BISP programme.