BISP families to have health insurance scheme

The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) on Friday formally signed the agreement with the State Life Corporation to provide health insurance to its registered beneficiary families.
The pilot project of health insurance scheme to be launched in Faisalabad District would be extended to beneficiary families all over Pakistan subsequently. State Life Corporation Chairman Shahid Aziz Siddiqui and BISP Secretary Sher Khan signed the agreement in the presence of BISP Chairperson Farzana Raja.
Addressing a press conference on the occasion, Farzana Raja said that a comprehensive working was being done since a year to present the unique gift to BISP beneficiary families. “Like all other initiatives of BISP,” she said, “the health insurance would also be carrying state of the art technology-based systems.”
She said that the BISP has already provided life insurance to its beneficiary families in collaboration with the State Life Insurance Corporation and so far 2.5 million families have been provided with the facility, while the rest of the families would be covered soon.
The BISP chairperson said that the BISP beneficiary families were identified by the parliamentarians in the first phase of the programme, whereas, in the second phase, seven million families were included in the programme as a result of the poverty survey. The families excluded from the programme had more than 16.17 points on the scorecard and due to budgetary constraints, the BISP could not retain them in the programme anymore.
She said that the necessary steps were taken to ensure more efficient and accurate beneficiaries’ targeting system so that the most deserving could be benefited from the programme.
Farzana said that the pilot project under the Health Insurance Scheme was being launched in the Faisalabad district, with 75,000 beneficiary families. She said that the State Life Insurance has signed agreements with 6 hospitals from private sector in the district and was negotiating with the Punjab government to sign similar agreements with public sector hospitals.
She said that the World Bank and GIZ, a German organization, were providing financial and technical support for the health insurance scheme.
Farzana Raja said that Benazir Cards would also be provided to all the beneficiary families till June 30, 2012 and the role of postmen would be eliminated. Moreover, she said that under the Waseela-e-Taleem initiative, over one million children will be enrolled in schools in the near future.
Answering a question, Farzana Raja said that the BISP was a transparent programme in every aspect and even the BISP chief patron (president of Pakistan), executive patron (prime minister of Pakistan) or the BISP chairperson (herself) did not posses the discretion of including a single family in the programme. By virtue of its transparent mechanism, the BISP was being supported and trusted by international organisations consistently, she added.
Answering another question, Farzana urged the reporters to inform the public about fake SMS to beneficiary families and general public on the name of BISP. She said that the swindlers must be taken to task and the BISP should be informed immediately about them so that strict action can be taken.