ISLAMABAD: Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) has been budgeted at Rs 838 billion for the upcoming fiscal year 2026-27, showing an increase of 17 percent in comparison to its budget for the outgoing fiscal year 2025-26.
This falls short by Rs 20.8 billion against the commitment Pakistan made to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to increase the quarterly stipend by Rs 3,500 for each of the 10.2 million Kiafaalat beneficiaries next fiscal year.
In addition, the official data related to BISP’s budget continues to be marked with glaring discrepancies.
Budget documents revealed that BISP’s annual budget for the outgoing FY2025-26 was Rs 716 billion, later revised to Rs 706 billion.
Only a day earlier, the Economic Survey for the outgoing financial year noted that the budgetary allocation for the BISP in FY2025-26 had stood at Rs 722.49 billion.
In other official documents, BISP’s budget for the outgoing financial year was shown to be Rs 716 billion, and in some other documents, this figure was Rs 722 billion.
The first review of the ongoing IMF programme loan, released in May 2025, noted Rs 716 billion as BISP’s budget for FY2025-26. This figure was also given by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb in his budget speech in the National Assembly in June last year.
Other documents showed that BISP was budgeted at Rs 722.48 billion for FY2025-26, an increase of over 20 percent in the programme’s annual budget, in comparison to Rs 598.71 billion it received in FY2024-25.
The Finance Ministry’s detailed budget documents, however, listed Rs 716.61 billion under the head of “operating expenses,” and BISP’s total budget for FY2025-26 was shown to be Rs 722.48 billion.
The IMF’s latest report on Pakistan released last month revealed that Pakistan had assured the IMF that its FY2026-27 budget will allow space for an increase in the quarterly Kafaalat benefit from 14,500 rupees to Rs 18,000 (per beneficiary) beginning in January 2027.
This implies that BISP’s budget for 10.20 million Kifaalat beneficiaries would require to be increased by Rs 142.8 billion—from Rs 716 billion in outgoing financial year to Rs 858.8 billion for the upcoming fiscal year. This indicates that BISP’s budget for the upcoming financial year requires to be increased by almost 20 percent, compared to only 17 percent increase shown in the budgetary documents.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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