ISLAMABAD: Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) from the first week of this July is launching ‘Social Protection Accounts’ for beneficiaries— a system that would allow them to be entitled to bank services as regular customers in order to receive cash stipends— and get rid of the retail agents, BISP Secretary Amer Ali Ahmad said on Tuesday.

“There are a lot of complaints of deductions by the agents at the retail sites. Our aim is to minimise foul play and enhance beneficiary convenience,” he told the journalists.“The new payment model will make the service more dignified for beneficiaries and less open to pilferage by unscrupulous agents,” he said.

“Now we are at a stage that this system will finally be launched in the first week of July,” the BISP secretary said, adding, the trials to this effect began a few weeks ago.

“The system will provide independence to the beneficiaries in the sense that they would be treated as regular bank clients instead of being constrained to go to the retail agents or the campsites,” the secretary said.

The beneficiaries, he said, will have the freedom to choose banks of their choice— initially from five banks.

“This list of banks would further expand in October/ November when the relevant contracts expire,” Ahmad said. “The major revamp of the payment model will provide transparency and freedom of choice to the beneficiaries,” he said.

He said that the existing payment methods required closer monitoring by BISP, adding that numerous beneficiaries had to travel long distances to reach the campsites to get the cash stipends which resulted in crowded campsites. Director General BISP Cash Transfer Noor Rehman said 37 cases have been registered against retailers involved in fraud, and 160 POS agents have been blocked.

As of 2 pm, Tuesday, BISP distributed 37.173 billion rupees among 4.13 million beneficiaries in the ongoing cash payment drive for Kifaalat beneficiaries that began on June 19, he added.

The payments would continue till today (Wednesday), and resume from July 4 after Eid and bank holidays, the DG said.

“The biggest challenge for BISP and local administrations has been the payment system executed through one bank and its designated retailers in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, and through another bank and its retailers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. This payment method is being replaced with a more transparent and digitised system,” the DG stated.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023