STAFF REPORT
ISLAMABAD: Around 1.8 million children have been enrolled under the Benazir Taleemi Wazaif Program, with a distribution of Rs. 15 billion among the beneficiaries from May to October 2022, according to an official source released here on Saturday.
The Program is being implemented by the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP).
Since the program began, 10.5 million children in total have been enrolled under the Benazir Taleemi Wazaif Program, a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) intervention.
BISP education programs
The Program was launched because many children in BISP beneficiary households were not attending school.
From July 2021 onward, the scope of the Program was expanded from primary to secondary and higher secondary level and is now operational all over the country.
The source further added that about Rs. 49.84 billion has been distributed among the beneficiaries of the Benazir Kafalat Program from May to October 2022.
After the recent initiative, the number of people who benefited from Kafalat Program, an unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) initiative, has improved from 7.2 million to 8.5 million.
Meanwhile, the government is working to increase this number to 9 million by June 2023.
The BISP Board has recently agreed to include transgenders in the Program who must obtain a CNIC form NADRA, clearly showing their gender as ‘transgender’.
About the CCT Benazir Nashonuma Program, a total of Rs 162,964,000 has been dispersed among the enrolled beneficiaries from May to October 2022″, as information provided by the official.
The Program intents to address stunting among pregnant and lactating women (PLW), along with their children under the age of 2 years, through the provision of supplementary cash of Rs 2,000/- per quarter per PLW for a boy child and Rs 2,500/- per quarter for girl child of BISP beneficiary families.
Meanwhile, the mothers must obligate to attend regular antenatal health checks and awareness sittings during pregnancy, consume specialized nutritious food (SNF), and take their children for immunization and regular health checks, the source added.
BISP -HEC scholarships
The source further revealed that the process of enrollment had been completed by registering 10,000 students for the scholarship under Benazir Undergraduate Scholarship Project (BUSP)
A budget of Rs 7.346 billion, reserved for FY 2021-22, was released in May 2022, with an additional Rs 2.24 billion allocated for the current fiscal year.
The disbursement of the amount is under prosses to all 132 participant universities across Pakistan in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission (HEC).
