Is BISP Political? The Sindh Question Nobody Will Answer

Why I believe a permanent handout has become a machine for votes

By Asad Baig • Written from outside Pakistan • June 2026 • Approx. 9-min read

I am going to say something here that some people will not like, and I am going to mark it clearly, again and again, as my own belief, so no one can pretend I dressed an opinion as a fact. I believe BISP, in the way it is run and protected, has become political. The name itself, to me, says so. This is part of the argument I make in where is the plan, and I want to set it out properly.

Is BISP politically motivated?

In my opinion, yes, a permanent cash handout that grows every year and cannot be ended or even renamed has become a political machine as much as a poverty programme. These may be called my claims, or my harsh opinions, and I accept that. The figures are not in dispute: BISP receives about Rs 844.8 billion in 2026-27 and keeps rising. What I am adding to the figures is a judgment, and I am telling you plainly that it is a judgment.

That is my position, marked as mine. Now let me make the case, and then give the other side.

The fact that made me ask

Consider one thing, and ask yourself why. The province most associated with this programme's politics has not changed its government in a very long time. The same party, election after election. Have we ever honestly asked ourselves why?

In our politics, people are so poor that they will come to a rally just for the box of biryani served at the end. They come to kill their hunger. So ask yourself honestly. A family that receives a payment every month, will it ever vote for the party that might end it?

Picture the rally. The chairs in the ground, the flags, the heat. The crowd has come for the biryani, and everyone on the stage knows it. That is not democracy buying dinner. It is dinner buying democracy. The monthly payment is the same rally, made permanent and made quiet.

Why I do not call this only corruption

These may be called my claims. But when a party will not let a cash programme end, and will not even let its name be changed, I do not call that only corruption. I call it a use of power. A programme that genuinely existed only to help the poor would not need to keep a particular name, or a particular party, attached to it. It would be happy to be reformed, renamed, handed over, improved. The resistance to changing it is, to me, the tell.

And the lenders push it further. The fund keeps pressing the government to expand direct cash, because it likes that the money reaches poor families directly, and even regards it as a good thing. I do not accept that calculation, and I never will, because it looks only at the transfer and never at what the transfer does to a person's vote, or to their future.

The honest other side

Now I will be fair, because I always am, and because an argument that hides the other side is a weak one.

Many serious people say BISP is among the more credible programmes in the region. It uses a biometric national means test to choose recipients, rather than a local politician handing out favours. The World Bank and others have praised it for that targeting. It pays the woman of the house directly. Its growth under the lenders' programmes is, they argue, proof that it is trusted, not a slush fund.

I take that seriously. It is the strongest answer to me, and I will not wave it away. A means-tested, biometric, woman-targeted transfer is a more honest instrument than the patronage schemes it replaced.

How I hold both

So how do I hold both things at once? Like this. A programme can be genuinely well-built and also politically useful to the people who run it. Both can be true at the same time. The good targeting does not cancel the political use, and the political use does not cancel the good targeting.

The figures cannot tell you which one weighs more. What the figures do tell you is that this handout is large, growing, and protected in a year when the things that build the country were cut. That is why the argument matters, and why I keep making mine. The full both-sides version, with the targeting machinery laid out, is in BISP, subsidies and the politics of cash support.

We already have a way to feed the hungry

There is one more thing I want to put on the record, because people will say I am cruel to the poor. I am not. I am saying we already have a system to feed the hungry, and it is not this one.

We are a country with Zakat and charity running all year round. We have the Bait-ul-Mal. We have thousands of charities, many of them religious, feeding people every single day. The hunger of today is already being met by a vast network of giving. So when the state insists that only its handout, with its political name, can stand between a family and starvation, I do not believe it. I think the hunger is being used. I think it is the cover. And underneath the cover is the machine I have been describing. I lay out the alternative, redirecting the money into education, in cash is not a plan.

The test I keep asking for

I will end where I always end on this. The test of a handout is not whether it feeds you today, but whether it ever lets you leave. So measure that. Publish, every year, how many families left the programme for good. Make a minister answer for that number, not for the amount paid out.

If the programme is truly about lifting the poor, that number is its proudest figure, and it should be on every billboard. If it is about something else, that number is the one thing it will never collect. Until they show it to me, I will keep believing what I believe, and I will keep saying it. I argue what a real plan would do instead in cash is not a plan.

Frequently asked questions

Is BISP politically motivated? In my opinion, yes, though I mark this clearly as my belief, not a fact. I argue that a permanent handout which grows every year and cannot be ended or renamed functions as a political machine as well as a poverty programme. Others disagree, and I give their case.

What is the evidence it is political? My argument rests on the programme's permanence, the resistance to ending or renaming it, and the long political stability of the province most associated with it. These are observations and a judgment, not a court finding, and I present them as opinion.

What is the case that BISP is not political? That it uses a biometric, means-tested national registry to choose recipients, pays women directly, is praised by the World Bank for its targeting, and is trusted enough that the IMF backs its expansion. I take this case seriously.

How much is BISP in the budget? About Rs 844.8 billion in 2026-27, up roughly 17 percent, part of a wider grants-and-transfers head that grew close to 39 percent. Details in BISP, subsidies and the politics of cash support.

What would change your mind? A published, annual figure for how many families have left the programme better off and stayed off. If a handout is truly about lifting the poor, that number is its proudest measure. Its absence is what keeps my suspicion alive.

Could BISP be reformed instead of ended? Yes, and that is what I want. I am not asking to starve anyone. I am asking to tie far more of the money to education and skills, to publish graduation figures, and to remove the political name and ownership. A programme that resists exactly these reforms is, to me, telling you what it is really for.

Sources and notes

• Government of Pakistan, Federal Budget 2026-27: BISP and social-protection figures are Budget Estimates in billions of rupees.
• BISP targeting and the World Bank's assessment of it are matters of public record and are presented as the counter-argument.
• The reading of BISP as a political machine is clearly stated throughout as my opinion, with the contrary view given. The intent is to argue honestly, not to accuse any person of a crime.

Related reading

• The pillar: where is the plan, my opinion on the 2026-27 budget
• The both-sides desk version: BISP, subsidies and the politics of cash support
• Siblings: cash is not a plan, we educate our people, then we export them, the riba factory