The fraudulent practices by Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) agents have been on the rise. The government recently released the first quarterly tranche of Rs7,000 for the year 2023, and Benazir Taleemi Wazaif for the children of the poor. However, there is no disbursement yet.
Under the BISP alone, about 7.7 million families stand to receive over Rs55 billion in the first tranche. The beneficiaries — women and transgender people — are in most cases unaware about their fate in this regard. Most beneficiaries do not know if their children’s instalment has been added to their BISP amount. This makes it easy for the agents to deceive the beneficiaries.
Recently, in Sehwan, many beneficiaries were defrauded by the agents concerned. One such victim was my relative who was deprived of Rs17,000. The agent gave her only Rs7000, while keeping the rest himself. Upon knowing, she raised concerns, but the agent was successful in reaching a ‘compromise’ with the victim.
This is just one of the many cases one gets to hear from the victims. The agents have swindled hundreds of beneficiaries in Sehwan alone. And this continues to happen without anyone taking notice of the illegal activity. Instead, the officials spend time making tall claims of transparency. In addition to deceptive practices, the agents are also skilled in the art of deducting Rs1,500 per head as their ‘commission’.
I sometimes wonder how a nuclear-armed country is so poor in technology that it has allowed even matriculate fraudsters to deceive the entire system. Indeed, these agents take advantage of the gullible victims who are poor and illiterate. The bigger tragedy is that they carry on their act without any fear of getting caught.
The BISP mechanism must be made transparent and fraud-free. For this, the government needs to launch an online portal where the BISP amount can be checked, accessed and transferred to the bank/mobile wallets by the beneficiaries. The simpler the system is, the more fraud-free it gets.
Till that happens, the authorities concerned need to be vigilant and they must take punitive actions against deceptive elements within the system.
IMTIAZ ESSA HALEPOTO
JAMSHORO
