Adeem Niaz

Beneficiaries of the Benazir Kafalat Program, which is being carried out under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), have been disbursed almost Rs49.84 billion from May to October 2022. According to an official who highlighted the BISP's six-month performance, the number of beneficiaries of the Kafalat programme, which is an Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) initiative, climbed from 7.2 million to 8.5 million between the months of May and October.

Approximately 8.58 million beneficiaries of the Kafalat programme are enrolled or registered at this time, he said and added, by June 2023, the present government hopes to increase this number to 9 million. Transgender people must now get a Computerised National Identity Card from the National Database Registration Authority that specifically identifies them as transgender. This policy has recently been authorised by the BISP Board, he said.

The official spoke about the Targeted Petroleum Subsidy Programme and stated that from May to October 2022, 8.67 million beneficiaries received a total distribution of roughly Rs17.35 billion. The project was started in order to safeguard the poor and vulnerable households from the consequences of rising gasoline costs by offering an extra cash subsidy of Rs2,000 to both current regular BISP recipients and new beneficiaries utilising the National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) database.

The official spoke about the Prime Minister's Flood Relief Cash Assistance Programme, which provided roughly Rs69 billion between August and October 2022 to the 2.76 million households that were impacted by the devastating floods this year. Through BISP, urgent monetary assistance of Rs25,000 per household was given to those impacted by the recent floods that occurred throughout the country, he said.

The official stated that 10.5 million children have been registered in the Benazir Taleemi Wazaif Programme, a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) initiative, since the programme's commencement. However, 1.8 million children were registered for the period of May to October 2022, and Rs15 billion was given out as education aid during that time. In order to encourage elementary education, the initiative was started in 2012 by giving additional funds to BISP recipient families every three months. This was done in response to the fact that many children in BISP beneficiary households were not attending school.

Since July 2021, the program's focus has grown from primary to secondary and higher secondary levels, and it is now in use nationwide. About the CCT Benazir Nashonuma Programme, the official said, a total of Rs162,964,000 was given among the enrolled beneficiaries from May to October 2022.

The programme provides additional cash payments of Rs2,000 per quarter among pregnant and lactating women (PLW) for male child and Rs2,500 per quarter for girl child in BISP recipient families in order to reduce stunting among PLW and their children under the age of two. In exchange, mothers agree to bring their children for immunisation and frequent health checks, attend prenatal health checks and awareness workshops on a regular basis, and eat specially nutritious food (SNF).

According to the official, the enrollment procedure for the Benazir Undergraduate Scholarship Project (BUSP) has been concluded with the enrolment of 10,000 students for the scholarship. In May 2022, the entire Rs7.346 billion budget for the fiscal years 2021–22 was released. Out of the total budget of Rs9.27 billion set aside for CFY, an additional sum of Rs2.24 billion was issued in September 2022. The money is being distributed by Pakistan's Higher Education Commission to each of the 132 participating universities across Pakistan.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk