Transparent mechanism for BISP amount disbursement being adopted: Senate told

Islamabad: The Senate was informed Friday that a mechanism is in place to ensure disbursement of amounts to the beneficiaries of Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) in a transparent manner.

The session was held at parliament house in Islamabad today with Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani in the chair.

At the outset, the house offered fateha for the security personnel martyred in recent acts of terrorism.

Minister of State for Law Shahadat Awan told the house during question hour that monitoring of payments at all levels is ensured to cater to the issues of illegal deductions. 

He said spot checks and surprise visits at disbursement points are made by Benazir Income Support Program Head Office and regional teams.

The Minister of State for Law said the government has allocated a total budget of 364 billion rupees to Benazir Income Support Program for the current financial year.

Responding to a supplementary question, State Minister for Law and Justice Shahadat Awan said that Rs 434.43 million were spent on former prime minister Imran Khan’s back-and-forth travel from the Prime Minister House to his private residence in Bani Gala via helicopter during his time in office from 2019 to March 2022.

The minister also shared the breakdown of the helicopter expenses incurred by Imran Khan.

The breakdown showed that the helicopter was used for a total of 1,579.8 flying hours in four years with an average cost of Rs 275,000 per hour.

According to the detailed breakdown of expenses,

Total flying hours and expenditure during flight per year:

2019: 479.8 hours at a cost of Rs131.94m

2020: 522.0 hours at a cost of Rs143.55m

2021: 450.2 hours at a cost of Rs123.8m

Jan-Mar 2022: 127.8 hours at a cost of Rs 35.14m

The house will now meet on Monday at 3:00 pm.