Rs2b spent on BISP ads in four years: Farzana

Foreign content on tv, malaria control also discussed.

ISLAMABAD:

During the last four fiscal years – up until December 2012 – the government has spent more than Rs2 billion on a media campaign for the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP). 

BISP Chairperson Farzana Raja shared this information with the National Assembly on Wednesday during the question hour session. She said that of the allocated Rs3.6 billion, Rs1.88 billion was spent on the promotion of BISP in electronic media, while Rs555 million was spent on print media.

“The purpose of the campaign was to make BISP easy to understand for every Pakistani,” said Raja. The programme’s communication strategy, she added, was a mixture of various means and resources used to reach out to beneficiaries present across the country.

Replying to a question, she told the lower house that Rs93 million were spent during the 2008-09 fiscal year. It increased to Rs658 million in 2009-10, Rs778 million in 2010-11, and Rs863 million in 2011-12, while the advertisement expenditure remained Rs51 million in the current fiscal year (up until December 2012).

Besides electronic and print media, the programme also reached out to people through newsletters, websites, seminars, conferences, workshops, social mobilisation techniques, announcements in the mosques, training camps, counselling and local gatherings at national, provincial, district, tehsil and union council levels.

The minister in-charge of the Cabinet Division told the house that the government was not considering proposals to introduce any new scheme under BISP. About the Waseela-e-Haq programme, he said that 10,217 people were provided loans across Pakistan – Punjab (4,470), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (2,525) and Sindh (2,215) remained the highest beneficiaries of the programme.



Private channels

Foreign content hosted by television (TV) channels was also discussed at the question hour. Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira told the National Assembly that private TV channels were allowed to telecast foreign content up to 10% of overall transmission. Some 40% of this may be English.

He further said that 165 show cause notices were issued to TV channels for violating Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) laws. Additionally, 146 warnings were issued to channels and 19 of them were imposed fines.

Malaria control

Responding to MNA Qudsia Arshad’s inquiry about the money spent on the government’s malaria control programme and its results, Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Mir Hazar Khan Bijrani told the house in his written answer that until June 2011 merely Rs107 million worth of funds were released to the  Roll Back Malaria in Pakistan programme.

The minister said the total allocated funds for the programme under PSDP (Public Sector Development Project) were Rs658.62 million for five years (up till the 2012-13 fiscal year). However, all funds were directly released to provinces. “No funds were given to Federal Directorate of Malaria Control (DOMC),” said the minister.

He said the government strategy to control malaria is multi-pronged. It includes early diagnosis and prompt treatment, epidemic preparedness, operational research, awareness, communication, social mobilisation and partnership building.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2013.