Government cuts spending on Poverty reduction Programmes
Friday, October 21st, 2011 3:46:25 by Farhan Khalid
Do you ever wonder what percentage of Pakistanis live below the poverty line? Let’s not get into the details because the figure will definitely be colossal and blow your mind away.
Every political party before coming into power boorishly focuses on the aspect of eliminating poverty in their election campaigns and to be fair, they do give it a shot after gaining authority. But unfortunately not to the extent that is expected of them.
Our current government like the previous ones is motivated to reduce the menace called poverty however one startling fact contradicts their mission.
The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper- PRSP 2011, released this Wednesday shows there is a significant drop in the expenditures on issues like rural development, social security, welfare and employment generating programs than compared to last year.
Governments focus has deviated more to augmenting education standards, roads and highways, agriculture and law and order situation which in a way is justified but poverty is the main problem that is hindering Pakistan’s development and so Government should focus on it more than other issues.
According to PRSP, budget on social security and welfare has been reduced to 17.5 billion in contrast to 20.3 billion last year. Expenses on Population Planning is cut to one third however the biggest slashing is on low-cost housing. Compared to Rs 1.83 Billion last year, this year’s budget was only 373 million- a reduction of almost 80 percent which is just mind boggling.
In rural development, there is a decrease of 1.3 million than 12 months ago. On the People’s Works Programme I, the spending dropped by 40% to Rs5 billion and on Programme II it belly-flopped one-third to Rs 21.3 billion
On the other hand, the government invested Rs169.8 billion on regulating and order, Rs26 billion or 18.3% increase from last year. Almost the entire amount – Rs 168.4 billion – was used on running expenses; it seems insincere to include this spending under poverty reduction.
Government needs to invest more on poverty eradication projects in future if they wish to see a developed Pakistan in future.
Tags: Government, Poverty line, PRSP, rural development
Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=1070
Posted by Farhan Khalid
on Oct 21 2011. Filed under Pakistan.
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