UMERKOT, June 25: Staff at post offices are making undue and illegal deductions from the Rs1,000 subsistence allowance paid to the poor and needy women under the Benazir Income Support Programme, and in many cases they also demand bribe for releasing the amount, according to beneficiaries.

The women accused the post office staff of deducting Rs500 to Rs1,000 from Rs10,000 which they were to receive for the past 10 months.

The amount kept accumulating since it was suspended 10 months ago.

The fund distribution under the BISP was suspended in Umerkot district in the wake of growing complaints about political favouritism and nepotism and diversion of the funds to the rehabilitation of flood-hit areas.

The fund has now been resumed after the government carried out a poverty scorecard survey in the district.

The fund was to be given away to people living below poverty line but politicians used it as a political bribe and distributed it among their favourites, prompting donor agencies to threaten the government to stop funding.

The government then introduced another a mechanism and used NGOs to carry out the poverty scorecard baseline survey in which 142 questions were to be answered by each family and then Nadra was to decide whether the person was eligible or ineligible in light of the answers he had given.

People complained that correct information was not provided to the surveyors and many needy and poor families could not avail it while many rich people who earned Rs20,000 a day or government employees whose salary was Rs30,000 were enlisted as eligible.

According to sources at post offices, 137,000 money orders each worth Rs2,000 for 27,400 beneficiaries had been sent to Umerkot district. Each beneficiary was given five money orders amounting Rs10,000 each.

Personal Assistant to Director BISP Mirpurkhas Ghazi Khan said that payment of subsistence allowance had been suspended in Umerkot district from August 2010 to June 2011 because of some complaints and errors.

About complaints about smart card, he agreed they had received a number of complaints and said Islamabad office did not send the amount on any fixed date.

They were often not informed when the amount would be transferred, therefore, the beneficiaries kept visiting the booths and getting vexed, he said.

Bansi Malhi complained there was no place to go to record complaints and get information about the allowance. They had to stand in long queues before private computer shops to get their names verified through BISP website. The operators just put in a candidate's CNIC number and charged them Rs40 per name, she said.

Jalal Kori of Debo village alleged that Rs300 were deducted by post office officials in his village and more than 10 rich families received this allowance.

In Sadhar village, a number of women said they were paid Rs9,500 instead of Rs10,000. In-charge of the Sadhar post office Ghulam Mohammad Palli said that post master of Dhoronaro had given him the amount after deducting Rs500 from each the amount.

There are widespread complaints that post office staff in Kunri, Pithoro, Shadi Palli, Chhor, New Chhor, Dhoronaro and other places are also deducting their 'share' from the poor women's allowance.

Post offices staff complained that they had already huge workload and this additional job had been thrust on them without providing them facilities of vehicles and TA/DA to travel to different villages to distribute the funds.

They said that a number of their colleagues had been robbed, injured and killed in different incidents while distributing the fund but the government had failed to set up a separate department for the BISP.

Post masters in Dhoronaro, Shadi Palli and Pithoro towns outright rejected complaints about illegal deductions from their allowance.

Mohammad Ali, Divisional Superintendent of Pakistan Post in Mirpurkhas, said that he had suspended post master of New Chhor Dhani Bux Wassan on charges of misbehaving with beneficiaries. He said that he had not received any complaint about the staff demanding bribes. If he received complaints he would take strict action against responsible officials, he said.