KARACHI, March 26: A Senate standing committee was told on Tuesday that more than 4.8 million families were receiving a monthly grant of Rs1,000 under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) across the country and 1.5 million of them were from Sindh.

A meeting of the Senate standing committee on cabinet secretariat & capital administration & development was held here on the BISP assistance being provided to the people of Sindh.

The meeting was chaired by Senator Kalsoom Parveen and attended by Senators Abdul Haseeb Khan, Saeeda Iqbal, BISP officials Sher Khan, Zafarullah Soomro and others.

The committee was briefed on the BISP initiatives in Sindh.

The BISP secretary Khan said that more than 4.8 million families were receiving a monthly cash grant of Rs1,000, and a number of people were also availing themselves of other initiatives, including vocational and technical training, Waseela-i-Rozgar, interest-free returnable financial assistance, Waseela-i-Haq, health and life insurance, Waseela-i-Sehet, primary education (conditional cash transfer), Waseela-i-Taleem and emergency relief and cash grant.

Mr Soomro told the meeting that 1.5 million beneficiaries were receiving cash grants in Sindh.

Mr Khan also said that many countries in the world were now moving towards providing targeted subsidies and that Pakistan’s progress in this region through BISP had been recognised by many global financial institutions and foreign countries.

The BISP was now working on developing partnerships with the private sector and had already developed a comprehensive strategy in this regard, he added.—PPI