The Making of Benazir Income Support Program

The Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), introduced in 2008-09, is a unique cash support scheme for economically stressed families. Its uniqueness arises from several facets. The cash transfers are provided only to women aged over 18 years and have been ever married. It is unconditional and aimed at supplementing income as opposed to alleviating poverty. It was politically neutral, given that the facility to identify potential beneficiaries was extended to all parliamentarians, irrespective of party affiliation. A set of filters, applied electronically, ensured objectivity in beneficiary selection. Disbursement mechanism was automated to ensure minimal leakage. This paper outlines the process of the preparatory work that went into designing BISP – the conceptual debates, the beneficiary identification and disbursement procedures, etc. – involving a combination of high quality research with political decision making. It also addresses the debates surrounding BISP, cites independent empirical studies that show that the parliamentarian-based beneficiary selection mechanism was efficient and equitable and did indeed cover the deserving, and also responds to the variety of criticisms. ______

Critical Interfacial Characteristics of Epoxy Coating Adhesion on Steel Surfaces

Protective coatings are used for external and internal corrosion protection of gas/oil storage, transmission and distribution. The key factors for corrosion protection are adhesion of the coating to the steel surface, and resistance of the coating to permeation of water, oxygen and/or ions. External three layer polyethylene/hotmelt/Fusion Bonded Epoxy (FBE) coating is being used for corrosion protection of gas/oil pipelines buried under soil. FBE, being in direct contact with steel surface, has immense bearing on corrosion protection and hence service lifetime of the pipeline. The corrosion protection properties of the two FBE materials have been assessed on the basis of inherent chlorine contamination, reaction kinetics, dimensional stability after cure, water absorption etc. Analytical techniques such as Thermal Analysis (TA), surface characterization techniques like Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Time of Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (TOFSIMS) and electrochemical techniques like Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) have proved to be extremely helpful not only for performance evaluation of coating materials but characterization of the coating-substrate interface as well. ToFSIMS has been extremely useful in elucidating the detrimental effect of contamination such as oil, grease, fats etc at the FBE–substrate interface on the coating disbondment. The characterization of the interface has helped to predict service lifetime of a 3 LPE coating. Our analytical results have been validated by field tests. The most important factor influencing the service lifetime of a coating is the steel surface preparation by minimizing residual contamination. Clean interface should contribute towards alleviating the need for Cathodic Protection (CP) application and hence reducing maintenance costs. The ionic chlorine contamination is one of the most important critical interfacial characteristics of epoxy coating adhesion on steel surfaces. Incomplete cross- linking of the resin has turned out to be one of the contributory factors towards coating disbondment on steel pipeline buried under irrigated pathways. The strength of coating adhesion has been found out to be damaged by molecular moisture which diffused from the soil and surrounding atmosphere through the free volume in polyethylene and hotmelt. Quality of wash water for steel substrate turned out to be one of the characteristics for better performance of epoxy coatings on steel substrates. Furthermore the results confirmed that special attention must be accorded to periodic removal of settled water from fuel storage tanks at regular intervals.