KARACHI: Minister of State and Chairperson Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) MNA Ms. Marvi Memon on Saturday sought the business community’s cooperation and support in empowering the BISP families in the country ; especially in the backward Tharparkar district of Sindh.
So far 5.1 million families had been identified and registered with BISP, she said in an interactive session with the officials of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) here at the Federation House.
She was accompanied by BISP’s Director General, Human Resources, Agha Shamim Gul Durrani.
On FPCCI side, Senior Vice President FPCCI Khalid Tawab, FPCCI Vice President Arshad Farooq, Chief Advisor to FPCCI on Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSRs) Muhammad Siddique Sheikh, FPCCI Secretary General Mehar Alam, Senior Vice President of Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WCCI) of Quetta and Member of Executive
Council of FPCCI, Ms. Razia Habib, senior businessman from Gwadar Ashraf Iqbal Baloch were prominent in the meeting.
Ms. Marvi Memon briefed the FPCCI officials and said that BISP is a non conditional cash transfer program instituted to provide financial assistance to low income families.
She shared the database setup by BISP and identified that 5.2 million families lived under the poverty line were targeted to get the stipend of Rs 1,500 per month through Benazir Debit Card under the BISP’s CSR program.
She said that a team of BISP was looking for the contribution from the business sector in three areas — malnutrition, adult literacy and interest free loan to the targeted BISP families.
The meeting identified that main problem in Thar was the shortage of water and lack of management resources.
She was informed that India shared a large portion of Thar with same problems but now it had been turned into a green and beautiful land even very attractive picnic resorts had been development by managing the resources and ensuring the availability of water there.
Ms Marvi responded that the business community had capability to do many good things within short spane of time and appealed to them to come up with a system of water availability and proper supply in Thar areas where the people were facing serious problems because of drought.
When pointed out by Senior Vice President FPCCI, Chairperson BISP said various initiatives were being taken to educate the BISP beneficiaries and train them how to use ATMs to get their monthly stipend from BISP without loosing good amount to middlemen who help them draw the amount from ATMs.
” Yes, there is a mafia who collect these debit cards from illiterate women and keep a certain portion of the monthly stipends with them for simply using ATMs,” she remarked adding that we would soon get rid of these elements by creating awareness among the BISP beneficiaries.
FPCCI’s Senior Vice President Khalid Tawab said the discipline of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) covers the empowerment of businesses to improve their compliance and competitiveness to ensure better bottom line and sustainability as well as to sensitize them to recognize and own the challenges faced by the environment and the communities in which they operate.
He said FPCCI’s CSRs department aimed at to inculcate fair business practices with private sector leadership for socially responsible corporate, developing linkages with civil society for implementation and encouraging innovation in the economic as well as social sector of Pakistan.
Chief Advisor to FPCCI on CSRs, Muhammad Siddique Sheikh said that for taking care of various disciplines of the social sector, overall 14 Standing Committees had gradually evolved in FPCCI over the past decade. These were CSR, Education, Research, Environment, Health Care, Human Rights, Entrepreneurship, Poverty Alleviation, Professional Development, Religion, Culture, Science, Technology, Sports, Youth Affairs, Women Development and Vocational Trainings.
