F.P. Report
MINGORA: Minister of State and Chairperson BISP, MNA Marvi Memon visited Babuzai and Maimand in Swat today where she held meetings with BISP officials, beneficiaries and local notables. The purpose of the visit was to gauge the impact of BISP financial assistance upon life standards of beneficiaries and to monitor the service delivery level of BISP offices.
According to Third Impact Evaluation Report of BISP, BISP has caused 7% drop in poverty and 3% decline in poverty gap. In terms of child nutrition, there has been a reduction in proportion of wasted girls and decrease in malnutrition among girls by 11% as 80% of the beneficiaries spend the fund on food. BISP Waseela-e-Taleem has led to an increase in enrollment of children between ages of 5-12 by 10% points higher than the international average. On women empowerment front, BISP has caused to improve the women mobility to 37% and 76% of women retain full control on their stipend.
During her meetings with beneficiaries, Chairperson BISP enquired beneficiaries about the impact of BISP stipend upon their lives and about spending of this stipend. Beneficiaries informed that BISP stipend has assisted them to meet their day to day expenses and has helped to spend on the food, education and health of their children besides payment of their loans, setting up small businesses and even saving small amounts. Chairperson BISP also enquired if they were comfortable with current mechanism of withdrawing money through ATMs.
She informed them that to overcome the difficulty in using ATM by beneficiaries, BISP would soon covert the payment mechanism to Biometric Verification System (BVS).
She also discussed about the level of cooperation of BISP staff for resolving their problems. Beneficiaries expressed satisfaction over the service delivery of BISP tehsil office. Chairperson directed BISP officials not to make any compromise in attending to the concerns of beneficiaries.
In order to increase their income and resolve the issue of unemployment, Chairperson BISP urged the beneficiaries to save money from BISP stipend and invest into learning some skills or making traditional handicrafts and products so that they could graduate out of poverty. Chairperson BISP also visited the house of BISP beneficiary Sultana in Miamand along with local Nazim Raza Khan. While talking to her, Chairperson asked her about withdrawal of BISP stipend. Sultana informed that she withdraws quarterly stipend herself and she withdraws complete amount of Rs. 4834.
During her interaction with the notables and local government representatives led by District President PML-N Sadiq Khan in Miamand, the Minister stated that in order to update the National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER), BISP would soon start resurvey in the entire country. She urged them to fully facilitate and cooperate with the survey teams so that no deserving is left out in the resurvey.