KARACHI, July 31: Disbursement under the Benazir Income Support Programme is expected to touch Rs42 billion as against budgetary provision for Rs34 billion this fiscal year because of expected increase of one million households over and above 3.4 million poorest of poor households already targeted to be reached with Rs1,000 a month handout.

“The disbursement may even go further up and government might have to seek supplementary grant from Parliament, but Federal Finance Minister Syed Naveed Qamar has promised to take care of Rs42 billion in 2008-09,” a reliable source in Islamabad informed Dawn on telephone.

While maintaining that for the first time in history, any government in Pakistan has taken up such a huge direct cash delivery programme for helping the poor of the poorest, the knowledgeable source claimed to have worked out a strategy in which the beneficiaries have been identified in more than 132 districts through a computer system which by all means “is immune of all political influence”.

A steering committee, with the federal finance minister as its chairman, has in place a system for disbursement of funds under the programme. Ms Shahnaz Wazir Ali is the vice-chairperson of the committee that has four chief secretaries, five federal ministers, governor of State Bank of Pakistan and four members of National Assembly on it. Mr Kaiser Bengali, a well-known economist, is administrator of the programme.

After agreeing in principle to reach 3.4 million households with more than 20 million family members, the committee is of the view that there may be one million more households in the country who too deserve financial assistance.

“We will reach every targeted beneficiary through branches of six top banks with largest branch network and post offices,” the source said.

The source added that a committee would be put in place in every district to assist DCO who would supervise and monitor the implementation of the income support programme.

Under the programme the cash will be disbursed after every two months to an individual beneficiary. It will be by rotation for half of the beneficiaries in any district every month so that there is no big rush on banks and in post offices. It also means that every beneficiary will get Rs2,000 cash after every two months in all the districts.

The government is expected to make random and surprise checks on operation of the scheme besides relying on local steering committees and of course “there is a powerful and vibrant media to closely monitor the operation of this scheme and inform government as well as public at large of any irregularities,” the source said.

Even with all this arrangement and set up claimed to be “best possible under present conditions” independent analysts and observers in Karachi believe that more than a dozen districts in the NWFP and Balochistan, where poverty is most visible, will remain inaccessible for the government because of the “unusual conditions”.