ISLAMABAD: The federal government under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) has distributed over Rs68 billion to over 2.7 million flood victims.
This was informed by the BISP officials to the Standing Committee on Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety, which held its meeting under the chairpersonship of Saira Bano.
The standing committee was briefed regarding the operations and workings of the BISP in flood-affected areas. The committee was apprised that PKR 70 billion has been allocated for 2.8 million flood-affected families across the country.
The NDMA with the support of respective provincial governments notified the affected Tehsils/UCs of over 86 districts in Balochistan, Sindh, Punjab, and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and Gilgit-Baltistan. The BISP was mandated to identify the bottom 40 per cent population of the affected notified Tehsils with the help of the National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) data. The BISP implemented the flood response of disbursing one-time cash assistance of PKR 25,000 per family residing in the affected areas. The BISP has also launched an SMS service to identify flood-affected populations either not covered in the NSER database or above the 40 per cent population threshold and determine their eligibility. Over 10 million SMS were sent out, of which, six million had unique CNIC. The committee showed its concern regarding malpractices and scams in the disbursement of aid but was assured that aid is being distributed with minimal leakages and scams.
According to the data released by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), here on Friday, so far,116,151 flood-affected families in Sindh have received the cash financial assistance, 48,463 families in Balochistan, 28,726 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), 26,366 families of Punjab, and 40 families of Gilgit-Baltistan.
The torrential rain waters which resulted in the worst kind of flooding in the country’s history started in mid of June this year and inundated almost 33 percent of the country and affected 33 million people and are still playing havoc in Balochistan and Sindh provinces.
The floods have claimed 1,700 lives including 728 men, 632 children and 340 women. The floods caused by historical high monsoon rains also injured 12,867 people, of which, 5,409 are men, 4,006 children, and 3,452 women.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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