LAHORE:
The Popular Party of Pakistan (PPP) and the Pakistan-Nawaz Muslim League (PML) renewed their verbal dispute over the use of the Benazir Revenue Support Program (BISP) to provide support to people affected by floods in Punjab.
The PPP has long advocated the proposal that the BISP would be the most appropriate way to support the victims of the flood, however, the Punjab government, directed by the PML-N, is reluctant to the idea. The provincial government insists that the Government’s flood relief efforts were working well.
The BISP is a national program to provide cash assistance to poor and vulnerable families, particularly aimed at women. On Wednesday, the first lady Aseefa Bhutto Zardari warned that it would be “irresponsible not to use” the bisp, the “most effective way”, distribute help.
His comments arrived a day after Punjab Information Minister Bokhari, revealed that the provincial government would issue “relief cards” to the victims of flooding in their personal names of their own resources instead of using the Bisp to help them.
ASEEFA wrote in his account of social networks X that the recent unprecedented floods in Punjab affected more than 4 million people, emphasizing that Bisp would be the most effective and rapid way for the distribution of aid.
“Benazir’s income support program is the fastest and most effective way to distribute relief. Not using one of the state’s key organizations, which has both the data and the ability to provide assistance, would be irresponsible,” he published.
However, Bokhari criticized the PPP on Wednesday by dragging the BISP to the floods. “Nobody wants to abolish the bisp. The question is: why do you want to use it during floods?” Bukhari asked “repeatedly dragging it into the flood policy is exactly what we call politicization,” he said.
He accused the PPP of ignoring the interests of the people of Punjab and resorting to the flood policy. He defended the performance of the Punjab government during the floods, saying that even the president of the PPP, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, had praised the Prime Minister of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz.
Questioning the role of the PPP in Punjab, the provincial information minister said: “When, while you live in Punjab, you will fight with the Punjab case? Do you want the people of Punjab to be deprived of wheat, flour and bread?”
She added: “If you were able to do something, you would not be sitting at home telling us where I was going to attack the flood or where I was going to violate the embankment. Such decisions are made by governments according to situations and circumstances.”
