Quality data being collected for social security programmes: Marvi

Minister of State and Chairperson of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), Marvi Memon on Sunday said that quality data was being collected for designing social security programmes to help make the country a welfare state.
She said this while speaking at the training workshop organised by BISP for master trainers. It was pointed out that National Socio Economic Registry (NSER), a national asset, played a pivotal role in planning targeted subsidies, and designing and implementing social protection programmes.
Currently, the NSER data was being employed by more than forty different governmental initiatives and development organisations that include Prime Minister's Health Insurance Programme, PM Interest Free Loans, Punjab Khidmat Card, KPK Insaf Card and a number of NGOs.
NSER update would provide quality data to policy makers for designing effective policies on social protection. The new poverty survey of BISP was just ahead of the launch of Door to Door Survey of NSER update.
The workshop was conducted to train master trainers from AASA Consulting. The training session was followed by field simulated exercise of Door to Door Survey.
Renowned actor and host Faisal Qureshi accompanied the Chairperson during field exercise. AASA Consulting was one of the partner firms hired by BISP to conduct Door to Door survey in the pilot districts of new poverty survey. AASA Consulting would conduct survey in Cluster "C" districts from Sindh (Thatta, Jacobabad) and Baluchistan (Qilla Saifullah, Kech). These master trainers would further train supervisors and enumerators for conducting survey. The workshop was attended by Area Co-ordinators, Programme Managers, Data Managers, Enumeration experts and Communication & Mobilisation experts.
Faisal Qureshi appreciated the Chairperson BISP for her untiring effects for the uplift of poor. He urged the general public to participate and facilitate the new poverty survey as the data collected during this process would be used for designing social safety programmes and help Pakistan in becoming a true welfare state.
He appreciated the BISP IT team for CAPI architecture, as for the first time such highly scientific methods were being employed for data collection on such a large scale in Pakistan.
Highlighting the unique features of the NSER update survey, Chairperson BISP said that to overcome data quality errors, CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviews) instead of PAPI (Paper Assisted Personal Interviews) approach was being adopted. Similarly, to ensure universal coverage, systematic approach was being introduced for mapping and route planning of the survey teams. The registration application has in built checks and controls capable of identifying errors.
Bluetooth based synchronisation of the enumerators and supervisors, was a quality control feature that would ensure smooth operations without internet connectivity, which is a problem in remote areas of the country.