“Distribution of cash is not a viable long-term solution for eradicating poverty from Pakistan. The Rs 1, 000 a month given to the head of each recipient family translates into Rs 167 per person a month. Even at a dollar a day, the monthly income required is Rs 2,550 per family.”
These views were expressed by the participants of the Provincial Consultative Workshop on Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) organised by a local non-governmental organisation.
The participants said that it was the need of the hour that the government introduced a simple and credible system for the poorest and the most vulnerable, and the deprived women without a national identity card should also be included.
Pakistan People’s Party-Sindh General Secretary Taj Haider, Social Policy and Development Centre Senior Principal Economist Muhammad Sabir, BISP-Sindh Director General Dr Ghulam Qasim Bughio, Karachi Postmaster General Ali Ehsan Farooqui, Participatory Development Initiatives Programme Manager Kashif Siddiqui, and Jamal Shoro spoke on occasion.
They said that the selection of beneficiary through Poverty Scorecard is relatively good but needs further improvements.
They pointed that all social protection program be managed by single authority within the province, as this would reduce the amount of efforts and enhance the capabilities of the institution to provide relief to needed in more efficient manner.
The speakers emphasized that the powers and functions of committees and officer involved should be clearly defined and all BISP setups should be responsible to the provincial and local governments.
Lauding the efforts of the incumbent government in launching the BISP programme, they added that there was a need to make some reforms in its structure in order to maintain its neutrality and effectiveness.
Haider said that the incumbent PPP government is taking serious steps to resolve the poverty-stricken people’s issues, and added that a compliant redressing mechanism should be made strong by the BISP to further ensure transparency in the programme.
He added that sitting government of PPP in Sindh has decided that to alleviate poverty from rural areas of the Sindh industries to be established in gas production districts of the Sindh.
Bughio admitted that BISP is facing issues to deliver cash grants to poverty-stricken people as Post Office staffers were involved in corruption.He dispelled the impression that the BISP was a politically-motivated initiative, saying that BISP in first phase had been distributed forms without any political affiliation among the lawmakers of Senate and National Assembly. He added that BISP has been completed 80 percent poverty survey and the remaining 20 percent would be completed soon.
Sabir added that the government should consult local consultants, and start separate surveys of rural and urban areas because of the their different dimension of poverty.
