Launched in 2008 by the then Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government, the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) has been a subject of debate ever since. It began an unconditional cash transfer programme for those families which had an earning of less than Rs6000 per month.

The programme reached out to 1.7 million families in the first phase in 2008 through the elected representatives. The number has increased to 4.63 million families in 2014. The best part of the programme is the transfer of cash to the woman head of the family.

It is mandatory to have CNICs to enroll with BISP. The programme was initially labelled as a political bribe to lure political support for the ruling party by utilising public funds. The 2013 election results appear to have busted the myth to a great extent. The PPP failed to allure voters even after five consecutive years of cash transfers under the programme.

The best news is that the new government under PML-N not just continued the programme, it has also doubled the budgetary allocations under BISP during the last two years. The stipend to beneficiaries has increased to Rs1500 from Rs1000. The volume of programme reached to Rs94 billion in 2014-15 from Rs15.8 billion in 2008-09.

93 per cent of women beneficiaries are being transferred money thought debit cards which are easy to monitor and track.

There is an ongoing debate in the country on the impact of BISP and what is it evolving into. Rs94 billion makes almost 1/5th of the total federal development budget of the country and could have been used on infrastructure-related projects, goes the argument. Experts say that the BISP is not a social protection or poverty reduction programme but a marginal safety net that stops people from falling further into poverty and also allows them to become part of the political debate.

Also read: The power of cash transfer schemes

"It is about right not about poverty. It is about considering the poor as citizens and not serfs," says Dr Kaiser Bengali, the brain behind the BISP and its first chairperson.

"We need to understand that it started five years ago; two and a half years ago 2.5 million women were enrolled but now more than 4.6 million women are enrolled with the BISP. It means at least the outreach of the programme has doubled in the last two and half years. This is a big achievement. In countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, there is ample evidence that such cash transfers leads to a reduction in intergenerational poverty created by poor nutrition and poor health," he says.

He also points to the fact that millions of women got their CNICs only to get enrolled with the BISP. Data consolidates his claim as there were around 17 million women with CNICs in country in 2007 but more than 23 million women got their CNICs in year 2008 and beyond. Certainly BISP was not the only factor but surely a major one.

Majority of these 4.6 million women have also been using debit cards at ATM machines which involves their mobility as well as introduction to new technologies and official procedures. Over a quarter of the beneficiary women are using their mobile phones for something else like mobile banking.

BISP also did a poverty score card survey of 160 million people in Pakistan. The data is unique; no other organisation has collected data on those indicators in Pakistan. A third party validation has approved it, terming it satisfactory both on the basis of quality and quantity. From 2010 onwards, the enrollment is being done on the basis of poverty score card. The data is so accurate that the government of Sindh used it to track down the poorest of the poor in Thar after the famine which resulted in deaths of several hundred infants early this year.

The governments, both federal and provincial, should use the data for planning to eradicate poverty and initiate targeted development schemes. BISP has been planning to update its data. In a country where census has not been done since 1981, this data is like a goldmine.

There is a sense prevalent among the highups of the programme that perhaps the current PML-N government is not owning it politically, due to its branding. They say the government has been treating it as a conditionality imposed by the IMF and World Bank. As part of the IMF agreement, the government is required to withdraw untargeted subsidies being enjoyed equally by the rich and the poor, and to focus more on targeted subsidies like BISP. "There was political ownership of the programme during the PPP time. The current government has increased the allocation but it has been doing it only as an international commitment. PM Nawaz Sharif has not held even a single briefing on the BISP since he assumed office," one of them says anonymously.

The officials of finance ministry, a major stakeholder in the programme, second this position. "There is a problem with the branding of the programme. No political government would like to claim credit for work initiated by its political opponents. It is also true that it is condition of IMF and World Bank to not only run the programme but also to expand it. Ministry of finance gives briefing to the IMF on the programme every quarter," a senior official of ministry of finance tells TNS.

"Budgetary allocations to the programme are also a burden. After the 18th amendment and the 7th NFC award, provinces have maximum resources but they do not share the resources for BISP; instead only the federal government has to allocate funds for the programme from its kitty. Almost 87 per cent of total funds of BISP are allocated by the federal government while the rest of 13 per cent is pooled by multiple donors with DFID as a major partner," he says.

The PML-N government also set up a task force in August 2014 to review the performance of different safety net programmes like BISP, Baitul Mal, Zakat programmes. "The PML-N government has always been trying to link BISP with Zakat and Baitul Mal and wants to get it out of budgetary allocations. It is stopped from doing so under the IMF pressure," says Islamabad-based senior journalist Khaliq Kiani, who covers economy.

Kiani terms it a better programme but questions its effectiveness in the same breath. "We also need to see what this programme has achieved during last five years. More than Rs 300 billion spent on the programme during last five years but what have we achieved. The programme should not be treated as a charity programme but an opportunity to get people out of vicious circle of poverty. It is needed to be rethought."

On must give credit to the PML-N government which has continued and expanded the programme despite its branding and political differences. I a country where a narrative is being promoted systematically that democracy has failed to deliver, such programmes need to be promoted.

Subsidy is a public policy decision and governments should be aware of where to spend them. IMF and World Bank do not suggest to the governments to withdraw subsidies; they only ask them to focus more on targeted ones. "They are not against subsidy. They only suggest giving a subsidy which a country can afford and allocations for such subsidies would be protected," says Abid Hassan, former operations advisor at the World Bank.

He says there are issues with social security progammes even in countries like the USA. "I think BISP has been reaching well over 80 per cent of targeted population which is very good ratio." There is a need to have an exit policy. "It is not feasible to help a portion of the population for whole of their lives. Conditional cash programmes, linking it with children’s immunisation and sending children to schools, might have made it into a more meaningful exercise."

Ismail Miftah, a senior member of government’s economic team says the government is not concerned with the branding of the programme "but that there should be an exit strategy. We have been planning to design it in a way that at least 10 per cent of beneficiaries graduate and exit it for better."

Miftah says the PML-N government has made a conscious decision to not spend money on advertisements. "The money spent on advertisement would deprive certain families grants," he say, adding the time has come to depoliticise the BISP. "The simple fact is that continuity and progressive evolution of the programme under the PML-N government contradicts the gossip. We have been doing it as a duty towards people of Pakistan and not as a commitment with IMF or World Bank," he says.

In Pakistan where over time informal social security institutions have weakened, especially in rural areas making millions of people vulnerable to an extreme degree, government needs to strengthen the formal institution of social security. Pakistan, according to a senior official of finance ministry, is among the least protected countries. But a poor Pakistan uses 3 per cent of its GDP on subsidies in electricity and power sector. Every one per cent of GDP means $2.5 billion while government’s total expenditure on BISP is around $0.85 billion which is around 0.35 percent of GDP.

Richard Montgomery, head of Department for International Development (DFID), terms BISP a flagship social protection programme. "This is an indigenous programme of Pakistan of which it should be proud of," he says.

According to him, there is ample global evidence that social safety nets make a huge difference to the lives of extreme poor now and also after five/six years. "The nutritional benefits for young children in such households are seen in school learning outcomes. And it is not all done through social safety net. You have to have basic services to ensure support. But social safety nets do have immediate impacts on people’s vulnerability o--o to shock their ability to buy a more regular supply of food. It has a protection role," says Montgomery.