January 12, 2009	Monday	Muharram 14, 1430

ISLAMABAD, Jan 11: The International Monetary Fund has asked the government to select deserving families for the Benazir Income Support Programme by adopting a method devised by the World Bank and not through the elected representatives.

Sources told Dawn that the ‘change in selection procedure’ was one of IMF’s conditions for its $7.6 billion loan.

A well-placed source in the finance ministry said that now a $50 million loan was being sought from the World Bank to carry out a proxy means test (PMT) based on its methodology of scoring card to select poor families for the Rs34 billion BISP.

He said that even before the programme was formally launched, the World Bank had asked the government to adopt its methodology, but the prime minister approved the political approach of using legislators to select the deserving families.

The source said that as directed by the World Bank, the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP), a non-government organisation, would conduct the test and get Rs1 billion for its services.

He said that the NRSP would receive the $50 million World Bank loan, but it would be returned by the government.

The head of the NGO and World Bank’s representatives have already given a presentation to President Asif Ali Zardari and got his approval for the tests.

When contacted, BISP Chairperson Farzana Raja confirmed that the survey would be carried out through the World Bank model. The current disbursement of funds through legislators was only for providing immediate assistance to the poor, she said.

“It has not been decided yet who will do it (survey). We have not agreed with any donor for getting loans so far,” she said.

She said that disbursement of money through the existing system would, however, continue.

A senior finance ministry official on condition of anonymity said that a formal request had not been made to the World Bank for the loan.

He said that it was not possible to disburse Rs34 billion allocated for the BISP by June 30.He said that the Rs1 billion to be given to the NRSP for conducting the survey might be used from the programme’s budget of Rs34 billion.

Over the past nine months, 127,000 families have been identified for receiving Rs4,000 by money order through the Pakistan Post by the end of this month. So far, 250,000 families have submitted forms and applications will be accepted till Jan 31.