RAHIM YAR KHAN: The School Education Department, Rahim Yar Khan, will recover Rs11.5 million of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) from the 92 employees, pensioners or their spouses who have been beneficiaries of the programme that was launched for the poor women.

District Education Authority (DEA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tariq Jamil Baloch on Thursday wrote a letter to all district education officers (DEOs) that as per the orders of director of Public Instruction (Secondary) South Punjab Multan, they are instructed to recover the amount from all those employees who had received assistance amount from the BISP.

According to the document record of the education department, there were 92 employees, pensioners and their spouses who were beneficiaries of the BISP. The maximum amount received by a beneficiary was Rs178,874 while the minimum was Rs3,000.

Dept to recover the amount received by ineligible people

DEO Secondary (Male) Malik Aamir told Dawn that at the start of BISP programme, the persons below the score of 30 in poverty index were eligible for the BISP amount. But later when a digital audit of BISP was conducted by an international firm, it was disclosed that many employees and their widows who were getting benefits of salary or pension were also receiving BISP amount though they were ineligible for it. The government recently decided to recover the whole amount from these beneficiaries. The amount would be received through the process of recovery of over payment (ROP) by their monthly salaries or pension from the accounts office.

They could also credit their amount each month through a bank challan in the Bank of Punjab, Mr Malik said.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2024