SWABI, July 18: The usefulness of internet has dawned on the poor women of the district as they rely on the facility to confirm their names in the list of people entitled for getting financial assistance through Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

Women of different ages in Topi, Chota Lahor and Razaar areas of Swabi can be seen holding their identity cards and visiting net cafés.

“It was a big surprise for everyone in the beginning. We were astonished as to why women in our man-dominated society were visiting the net cafés,” Asif Khan, a trader having shop near a net café in the district headquarters, told Dawn.

They later came to know that purpose of those visits was to check whether the women could get BISP assistances or not.

However, officials said that women were told to visit BISP offices in their respective tehsils to check their names in the list of deserving people.

“We want to check our name in the café. Earlier we didn’t know about internet or the net café. We still can’t use computer but we have come to know that computer and internet both are useful. We can check our names through internet on BISP site,” said a woman, holding her two-year old son in her arms.

The women were telling the café owner to check with the help of their computerised identity cards whether they were entitled to get BISP fund or not.

It has been learnt that the women, who have no chance of getting the BISP fund, are told by the net café owners to pay Rs20 to Rs30 as a fee but those, who are entitled to the assistance, are charged Rs300 to Rs400.

“A few days four women were demanding of a café owner to return Rs1,200, they had paid as fee, because they could not get the BISP fund,” recalled a shopkeeper.

Traders alleged that in most of the cases net café owners misguided the women and gave them false hope of getting BISP fund. They said that few café owners were also arrested by police. “However, we don’t know what happened to them after that,” said Shaukat Ali, a trader.

Javed Khan Inqilabi, a local leader of PPP, said that BISP was meant to poverty alleviation. The approach was imperative for women empowerment but some people misguided women, he said.