Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has said that the government will bring poverty level to minimum within next few years through economic development, overcoming energy shortage and job creation, adding that poverty reduction was the priority of the government. Speaking at a seminar titled "Poverty estimation methodology, poverty in Pakistan and understanding the trends and the way forward," here on Thursday he said procedure to estimate poverty has been amended and now non-edible items are also clubbed with edible items to estimate poverty.
He said health and improvement in standard of living have also been made part of poverty estimation. He said the government has taken numerous steps for reduction in poverty and the welfare of the common man. He said the government has increased BISP amount to 107 billion rupees to eradicate poverty from the society.
He said poverty ratio has declined to 9.3 percent in 2014-14, which was at 34.7 percent in 2001-02. He said record tax collection stood at Rs 2103 billion in first nine months of the current fiscal year, which is a great achievement of the government. Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan has seen an exceptional decline in poverty in the last fifteen years. The Finance Minister said that due to prudent economic polices of the government, the poverty ratio has been showing downward trend and in future, it would further decline to the lowest level.
Ishaq Dar said the country has been put on the path of economic development, adding that comprehensive planning has been done in the energy sector. "Within next two years we will add 10,000 megawatts of electricity into the system we are working on different energy projects which after the completion will add a total 25,000 megawatt, of which 10,000MW would be added into the system by 2018", he maintained.
The Finance Minister said 35 out of 46 billion dollars of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will be spent through private sector and completion of these projects will help generate employment opportunities and help grow the economic activities in the country. He said now Pakistan is becoming a favourite destination for the international companies. Companies from Saudi Arabia and Qatar are keen to invest in Pakistan. Particularly, Kuwait is interested in energy sector in the country.
When asked whether Pakistan is going for another programme of IMF or not, the minister replied, "The country does not need another programme," and added that "we have to do a lot of work to sustain the current achievements". He said that no body will be allowed to derail the current growth. He said that he is leaving on April 12 to attend the World Bank-IMF Spring meetings in Washington.
Country Director of the World Bank Pochumuthu Illangovan, donors' representatives and experts in poverty estimation issues, senior government officials also attended the seminar. Speaking on the occasion Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal reiterated that bringing down poverty to zero level in coming years was the target of the government and it has adopted pro-poor policies, which includes public spending, enhancing economic growth rate and further strengthening social safety nets.
"The issue of poverty estimation was lingering on since 2008 and various steps were taken to resolve this issue. We have incorporated the suggestions of all these experts in our work. Moreover, we also sought advice of renowned poverty and development Gurus like Martin Ravallion and John Gibson to review our findings and they all endorsed us" Iqbal added.
He said that head count poverty was computed in Pakistan in 2001 and since then the ground reality has changed altogether as many structural reforms were put in place like liberalisation, social safety nets, increase in remittances and natural calamities.
Pakistan did not reset poverty breaches threshold of 10 percent every country rest it and we are no exception. According to 2001 data current poverty is 9.3 percent and therefore it needs resetting, he maintained. He said that after taking the charge of Planning Commission, he had decided to capitalise on opportunity of resetting and bringing it in harmony with socio-economic realties, development policies, and massive foreign investment.
Iqbal further said Pakistan needed to choose from reference group, measure of welfare (calories), and method and the government have chosen 10-40% of distribution as reference group, 2350 calories as minimum welfare measure and cost of basic needs as method. Using 2013-2014 data head count poverty comes out to be 29.5%. In monetary terms poverty line comes out to be Rs 3,030 per adult equivalent per month, he added.
Setting aside politics, this means that we are committing ourselves to a greater challenge because continuing with 2001 poverty line would have tagged roughly 20 million people as poor and resetting raises it to 60 million, so we are raising bar for ourselves, he said. He said the government has strengthened the social safety nets and is trying to create more opportunities for everyone. Pakistan Vision-2025 has promised a better living for everyone.