ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday said the BISP’s updated National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) through new survey will prove to be a cornerstone for the future policy making as it will ensure universal coverage for widows, orphans, elderly and the disabled making Pakistan a model welfare country in the world.
The federal minister, inaugurating the NSER Data Analytics mechanism, said the digital mapping of the data would be an asset for launching targeted subsidies on agriculture, electricity, education, health, nutrition and disaster targeted support to the poor and marginalised segments of society.
Speaking on the occasion, Chairperson BISP Marvi Memon said that BISP is all set to register the first ever dynamic NSER of the country as the previous NSER was a static registry unable to cater to changing socio-economic conditions of the population.
“The technology enabled ongoing survey for NSER update will generate best NSER in the world, making Pakistan clinch the top position, whereas currently Pakistan ranks at number five in terms of targeting and selection,” she said.
Briefing on the NSER update through resurvey, Director-General BISP Dr. Tahir Noor stated that ongoing door to door survey in 16 pilot districts would be completed by July 2017, followed by national roll out in September 2017 that would be completed by March 2018.
He apprised that BISP has also successfully tested the desk registration in Naseerabad, Sukkur, Haripur and Bahawalpur districts which has shown tremendous results.
The federal minister was given a detailed presentation on various features of the technology centric data collection mechanisms developed in-house by BISP’s Management Information System (MIS) team.
BISP Principal Technology Advisor Ahmad Farooq apprised the minister that Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) approach has been adopted instead of Paper Assisted Personal Interviewing (PAPI) to register the number one NSER in the world.
He said the registration application has in built checks and controls capable of identifying errors. Blue tooth based synchronisation of the enumerators and supervisors, is a quality control feature that will ensure error free registration.
Furthermore, computer based enlisting with the help of Google maps is also being utilised in order to ensure complete coverage of the population. The performance and coverage quality of survey teams is monitored through a Visual Monitoring Coverage Assurance (VMCA) system.
The addition of new questions in questionnaire related to rural-urban distribution, agro-climatic zones, transgender, chronic diseases, mental disabilities, access to justice, vocational training will enhance the quality of data.
The planning minister appreciated the dashboard for monitoring of survey activities and said that synergizing through technology will be game changer for targeted interventions.
