A public empowerment initiative

Courtesy:- S Rahman

Prime Minister’s Interest Free Loans Scheme should not be evaluated only in the financial perspective; it has a broader dimension: PM Nawaz Sharif’s commitment to fulfill all the mandatory state obligations.

Those who have had opportunities to interact with the Prime Minister as well as study his way of working are convinced that PM Sharif is of the firm belief that the government is duty bound to protect and promote its citizenry in all respects.

Even the concept of state authority in the eyes of Prime Minister is not that of assuming greater powers but that of rendering public service. This idea is rooted in the belief that the masses have every right to demand from the state protection against insecurity, poverty and other sufferings and inadequacies.

And this is what is meant by democracy, which means rule of the people, for the people and by the people. It is with this belief and commitment towards serving the masses that the PML-N government is announcing multiple initiatives to alleviate the suffering of the people. A number of schemes have already been launched while others are in the pipeline.

The underlying theme is that as achieving bigger targets including provision of jobs to all the unemployed might consume some more time, short-term relief measures must be undertaken without any delay to resolve miseries of the poor and unemployed people with limited resources. Hence, the schemes like Metro Bus offering affordable fare and speedy travel, enhancement of Income Support Programme fund up to 100 billion figure, Skills Development Scheme for 40,000 plus persons, Prime Minister’s Youth Loan Scheme and of late, the Prime Minister’s Interest-Free Loan Scheme.

The idea behind all these schemes is to help the citizens in attaining self-reliance in the foreseeable future, and becoming economically empowered. Of course, it is empowerment of those classes, which don’t have sufficient means at their disposal to enter into practical life with ease and dignity. It is the prime obligation of the state to take care of these people and the government is endeavoring to fulfill this obligation through this interest-free loan scheme.

The prime minister’s latest welfare initiative, interest-free loan scheme, is yet another public-empowering endeavour and three aspects of it are remarkable; one is its interest-free status that is going to prove an effective incentive for the potential borrowers to avail the loan on the easiest terms. In Islamic terminology, it is called Qarz-e-Hasna and it is deemed to be the most ideal and enabling type of loan for the disadvantaged persons.

The second most important and positive aspect of this scheme is allocation of half (50%) of the loans for women. Through this decision the Sharif government has, in fact, reposed its confidence in the women working force. In a way, it is like building up a strong women work force. Ultimately, it will end up in the replication of national work force. Avoiding the hackneyed word ‘revolution’, this decision of the government spells a massive change in the direction of growth.

The third important and beneficial aspect is that preference will be given to the vulnerable rural and urban poor with a poverty score of up to 40 and although the outreach of the programme is for the whole of Pakistan, greater attention will be given to the un-served areas. The focus of the programme will be in the category of the poor scoring between 18.5 and 40, which in common parlance means the really downtrodden and hapless lot awaiting benevolent state intervention.

Other details of this programme reveal that the focus will be on districts with no or low micro-finance network facilities. Those districts will be given priority in which micro-finance beneficiaries are 12 per cent or below, as per the Micro Finance Network (MFN) data.

Now let us have a brief look at the other benefits that would accrue from this scheme. According to experts, the micro-finance facility aims at helping the industry raise current access level of 2.5 million people to five million in the next five years.

The good news for the public is that a reasonably large number of loans are available. As many as 0.25 million (250,000) loans of Rs25,000 average will be granted. This is indeed an impressive start towards poverty alleviation. The well-informed ones say that this first phase will be followed by more such phases of public empowerment package since the scheme stands 100 per cent chances of success. The government has already allocated Rs3.5 billion in the fiscal year 2013-14 for this programme in the form of government grant for 2013-14.

And, as is evident from the programme’s title the loan will not carry any mark-up. And Prime Minister’s special instructions about maintaining transparency have been translated into reality by putting in place a proper mechanism of surveillance. The list of recipients would be made available on website as beneficiaries will be registered through an appropriate web portal. Additionally, an effective complaint centre to process and resolve complaints will be set up. Equal attention is being given to developing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each scheme’s monitoring on a regular footing with the support of the E-government Directorate of ministry of information technology.

And while IT Ministry will provide support in the area of transparency and monitoring, the executing agency of the interest-free loan programme is Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) but the latter won’t handle it alone because it is Sharif government’s policy to carry out its schemes with the collaboration and input of enlisted partner organisations and community organisations having necessary expertise and experience.