Poverty In Pakistan In Urdu

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Poverty In Pakistan In English

                                                            Introduction
 
    The word poverty derived from Latin word “pauper” means “poor”. Poverty refers to the condition of not having the means to afford basic human needs such as clean water, nutrition, health care, clothing and shelter. Poverty is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or country, or compared to worldwide averages. Poverty is one of the major social problems which Pakistan is facing. It is one of the most important and sensitive issue not only for Pakistan but for the whole world. Poverty can cause other social problems like theft, bribe, corruption, adultery, lawlessness, injustice etc.

    It is the fundamental duty and responsibility of the country to fulfill the basic needs of its people. Basic needs of man comprises of shelter, food and clothing. When these needs are not fulfilled they bring about problems termed as socio-economic problems. Pakistan has also been suffering from these problems. The real issue is not the presence of these problems in the society. But the extent to which they are being paid attention and solved. When these problems are not met timely the results in the form of deviant behavior, drug abuse, smuggling, corruption, poverty, illiteracy and many other social evils.
    Poverty Condition in Pakistan
    Poverty has been one of the biggest problems that Pakistan faces today. It is rightly said that poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere. Nearly 60 per cent of the population of Pakistan lives in villages. According to an analysis, poverty has increased roughly from 30% to 40% during the past decade. It means that 40 per cent of the country’s population is earning their livelihood below the poverty line. In such condition people are depressed of their basic necessities of life. Proper education and medicine are becoming distant from them. They are forced to think of their survival only of due to poverty and unemployment, parents instead of sending their children to schools, prefer child labor for them. They make them do so to support their family and use them as earning hands from the early age.

    Definition
 
    A situation in which a person or household lacks the resources necessary to be able to consume a certain minimum basket of goods. The basket consists either of food, clothing, housing and other essentials (moderate poverty) or of food alone (extreme poverty).The most common method used to define poverty is income-based.

    According to Homer
    “This is misery! The last, the worst that man can feel”.

    According Jean Guenon
    “He is poor who doesn't have enough; he is poorer who cannot get enough".

    “A person is considered poor if his or her income level falls below some minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. This minimum level is usually called the poverty line”.

    International Organizations Reports about poverty in Pakistan

    • UNDP (United Nations Development Program) Report
    According to a UNDP report, 65.5 percent population of Pakistan earns less than 2$ per day.

    • SPDC (Social Policy Development Centre) Report
    According to the SPDC, 88 percent of Baluchistan’s population, 51 percent of NWFP, 21 percent of Sindh and 25 percent of Punjab’s population is prey to poverty and deprivation.

    • World Bank Report
    According to the 2011 statistics of the World Bank, due to the global financial recession poverty ratio is increased especially of USA and the EU countries have pushed millions of people around the world into deeper poverty. Almost 40% of 107 developing countries are highly exposed to the poverty. Pakistan is ranked among the 43 countries who are most exposed to poverty.

    • Asian Development Bank Report
    According to the ADB report, poverty is spreading in Pakistan due to the rising population, Pakistan’s internal situation, agriculture backwardness, unequal income distribution, defiance expenditure, and increase in utility charges and rise in unproductive activities.

    • Pakistan’s Planning Commission Report
    Pakistan’s Planning Commission (2011), poverty rate has jumped from 23.9 to 37.5 percent in the last three years. The commission has estimated that in 2007 there were 35.5 million people living below the poverty line but in 2010 their number increased to over 64 million.

    Causes/Reasons of poverty in Pakistan

    It is difficult to point out all causes of poverty in Pakistan but the major causes of are given below:

    1. Government Policies
    Government is not well aware of present conditions of country. The policies of government are based on the suggestions of officials which do not have awareness about the problems of a common man. After implementation of the policies do not get effective result. After the failure of one policy, government does not consider its failure and announces another policy without studying the aftermaths of last one. Heavy taxes and unemployment crushes the people and they are forced to live below poverty line. The suitable medical facilities are not provided to people and they are forced to get treatment for private clinics which are too costly.

    2. Education
    Education sector plays a very vital role in the progress of any country. Unfortunately, the condition of education sector in Pakistan is very miserable. The lack of quality education our country is unable of dealing with the challenges of the 21st century. Due to poverty people are unable to afford quality education for their children. In addition, government’s negligence is frustrating the situation further. Even though various steps taken by different governments for the promotion of education, literacy rate lingers at 56% over the decade. Owing to low investment, government run schools are poor of basic facilities like proper classrooms, water and sanitation facilities, electricity. Private sector is doing an admirable job in this regard. But the money making objective of this sector, education has been beyond poor’s reach. The primary completion rate in Pakistan given by UNESCO is 33.8 % in females and 47% in males, which shows that people in the 6th largest country of the world are unable to get the basic education.

    3. Overpopulation
    Pakistan is facing the dragon of overpopulation. The growth rate of Pakistan is very high and is among the highest in the world. Since 1947, the population has become more than triple. Pakistan is almost touching 180 million marks. Population expansion has been a real issue of concern for all governments. With limited resources it is very difficult to control the growing population. There is a great economic disparity among the people. Poor are committing suicides out of hunger while rich are busy in buildup more and more wealth. These social problems directly affect the masses. The massively increasing population has almost outstripped the resources in production, facilities and in job opportunities.

    4. Unemployment
    Pakistan is poorly faced with the problem of unemployment. The existing unemployment rate is 15%. Thousands of young doctors, engineers and other educated people are out of job. There are no opportunities for youth to utilize their capabilities or abilities in right direction. Pakistan is facing the problem of brain drain due to unemployment because we are unable to utilize their precious hands in the progress of the country. The most horrible part is that it is rising every year it will show to be risky for the economy of Pakistan. It has negative impact on society. It creates frustration and revengeful attitude. It leads to an increase in the incidences of crimes.

    5. Judiciary System
    Justice delayed is justice denied. Timely justice is the core value of a welfare society. It is the duty of the state to promote justice. But in the case of Pakistan it has always been a day dream for the poor masses. Since the independence judiciary has been in prison at the hands of establishment. Weak judiciary has been unable to redress the grievances of the masses. Under such conditions people choice to violent actions and resolve their issues by extreme methods.

    6. Poor governance
    Owing to poor governance, the government is losing control over law and order situation. When individuals put themselves in front of institutions, they set a bad example. Suicide attacks, target killing, robbery and other crimes have become norm of the day. And government seems helpless in this regard.

    7. Corruption
    Corruption has become a major threat to Pakistani society because of four important reasons. First, the image of Pakistan has enormously suffered in the past few decades or so as the corrupt practices while awarding contracts, the launching of foreign funded projects and money laundering done by high level officials earned a bad name for the country.
    In 1996, transparency international a Berlin based civil society organization, rated Pakistan as the second most corrupt country in the world. The report TI was a source of great shame for Pakistan was it not shattered the country’s image but also discouraged foreign donors to support Pakistan in its developmental projects. When the culture of greed resulting into taking commission from foreign companies and agencies deepened, the trust and confidence of the world diminished. According to TI’s national corruption perception NCP Survey 2010 there occurs widespread corruption in Pakistan from 195 billion rupees in 2009 to 223 billion rupees in 2010.

    Some of the most corrupt institutions and areas in Pakistan identified by TI are: police, power sector, land administration, communications, education, local government, judiciary, health, taxation and custom. According to TI’s survey, there has taken place manifold increase in corruption in the present government than the previous one. Neither foreign national nor over-seas Pakistanis who may be interested in investing in this country are simply discouraged when they encounter large-scale corruption in the shape of bribery and kickbacks.

    8. Division of Agricultural Land
    Pakistan is an agricultural country. Most of people are farmers by profession. One has land which is fulfilling the needs of his family but he has to divide the land into his children when they got young. After division the land is not sufficient to support a family. Now the families of his children are suffering and spending their lives below poverty line.

    9. Materialism
    In our society social bonding are gradually becomes thinner and thinner. A race of material object has been started even no one tried to understand the problems of others. Everyone is gradually changing from human to a bioman which only know about his needs and have no concept about the limitations of others. People are not ready to help each other. At last everyone has lost his trust on others which affect our social and economic system and it is another cause of poverty.

    10. Large Scale Import
    The import of Pakistan is greater than export. Big revenue is consumed in importing good every year, even raw material has to import for industry. If we decrease import and establish own supply chains from our country natural resources the people will have better opportunities to earn.

    11. Law and Order
    There are lot of problems regarding law and order. Terrorist attacks create uncertainty in stock markets and people earning from stock are getting loss due to which the whole country faces uncertain increase in commodity prices.

    12. Fluctuated Foreign investment
    Foreign investor comes to local markets. They invest millions of dollars in stock markets and stock market gets rise in index. Then the investor withdraws his money with profit and market suddenly collapses. The after math always is faced by poor people.

    13. Privatization
    Government is unable to manage the departments and country has low reserve assets. So the meet the requirements some companies run by government are sold to foreign investors. The commodities or services provided by the companies are becoming costly. For example if government sold a gas plant then prices for gas in country rises.

    14. Moral Culture
    The main reason for poverty is the social dishonesty and irresponsible behavior of people. Everyone is trying to get rich by using unfair means. A shop keeper is ready to get whole money from the pocket of customer. People doing jobs are not performing their duties well. In society the man considered brave or respectful who do not pay taxes or continuously violate the laws. This irresponsible behavior continuously increases and produces loss for county.

   15. Political Instability
 
    Pakistan has been facing political crisis from its birth (1947) till now. From 1947 to 2010,
    In this long period many government changed but unfortunately they all could not
    Maintain the political environment stable, after ruling 1, 2 or three year that governments politically instable. Political instability is a situation when the uncertainty among the government structure expand due to some basic causes and it eventually end up the current government1. Army’s frequent interventions have never given democracy a fair chance to flourish in our country. Our political leaders are also responsible for this predicament. They have always tried to achieve their vested interests in the garb of politics. They have never respected the norms of democracy. Judiciary has also been the victim of such political instability. That’s why; our country has failed to develop healthy political institutions, a lasting democracy and impartial judiciary.
    Solutions/Remedies to Overcome the Poverty in Pakistan

    Policies regarding poverty reduction Marshaled by different government could not calculate the desire results. Crudely speaking, this is the gravest problem being faced by Pakistani nation, if not handled with diligent care and implicit faith, will swell and devour the entire mechanism of the state. For a welfare state to get stronger, policies as regards development of poor strata should be the top of the checklist’s behold a time when we shall be steadily hauling our downtrodden economy towards heights, provided that we chalk out such policies that not only project the welfare of effected spots but also transpose their outlook .I propose following measures for extermination of this menace

    1.Promote industrialization
    2.Replacement of the traditional agricultural equipment with new scientific equipments in order to increase the yield.
    3. Establishment of justice and equality
    4. Equal distribution of resources
    6. Merit should be the upshot strategy in all walks of life
    7. Elimination of discriminatory policies
    6. Controlling of inflation and other economic indicators and regulators.
    8. Developing investment friendly environment
    9.Giving more feasibilities and concessions to the foreign investors
    10.Dumping extremism and feudalism
    11.Establishing more and more technical institute in order to get people well skilled.
    12. Prevalence of education
    13. Provision of job opportunities
    14. Division of agricultural lands among tenants.

    Conclusion
    Leadership has got central importance here; with proper planning and good government policies the problem can be solved. All they need to do is to appoint competent and wall qualified economists to help them tackle this issue and obviously their sincerity for its solution cannot be ignored as well. A country economy is the backbone of its country with its solution when it is saved many problems will automatically. Alone leadership is not enough for its solution. People of Pakistan have too got responsibility with equal share. People need to cooperate fully with government and should be sincere with their own country and put all their energies for eradication of poverty.

Poverty In Pakistan Articles

Poverty is curse and it is said to be mother of crimes. It is in fact that most of the crimes that occur are due to poverty. It is a multi-faceted phenomenon which encompasses economic, political and social deprivations of the people in a country and manifests itself in a vicious circle. Low savings and ultimate low investments result in low income, poor education, lack of health facilities, unequal distribution of wealth and poor infra-structure. The denial of basic and essential needs to the population gives rise to the concept of poverty.

Pakistan, as a whole is filled with poverty and hunger. The hunger and poverty is assuming alarming proportions in Pakistan. The situation in Pakistan is now so bleak that even some honest people who hated corruption from depth of their beings failed to keep their mental balance due to the pressure of poverty and resorted to crimes just to maintain their existence. It is the time that the judge should not only look at the crime committed by anyone rather he should find out the cause that leads the committer to such an act. Poverty is watching our children and grandchildren share tears in their deepest sleep. Poverty is witnessing our children and grandchildren die in our arms but there is nothing we can do for them. Poverty is seeing our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters are committing suicides in pain and in sorrow just because they could not get something to eat for their families. So far there were suicides because of unemployment and poverty but a new phenomenon has now emerged; now the poor who cannot feed their children are leaving their children at charity homes or even selling their children. It is a sign of poverty when we hide your face and wish nobody could see us just because we feel less than a human being. Poverty is when we dream of bread and meat, we never seeing in the day light.

Poverty is when the hopes of our fathers and grandfathers just vanish within a blink of an eye. Poverty never sleeps rather it works all day and night and never takes a holiday. Poverty is getting nobody to feel our pain and poverty is when our dreams go in vain because nobody is there to help us. Poverty is when we have no employment. The person who is indulged to crimes and is labeled as a criminal by the society merely due to poverty might be a genius if he had been brought up in a healthy environment. In my opinion their sins are less or no greater then the sins of the selfish and mean-minded people who call themselves honest but are constantly usurping the public money and taking it to outside the borders. The only answer to remove poverty is the creation of a sound economic and social structure. The recent trend in poverty as reported by UN found that “Food security in Pakistan in 2007-2008 has only but worsened as a result of food price hike”. The findings of the report indicate that the high food prices are undermining poverty reduction gain, as food expenditure comprises a large share of the poor total expenditures and food price hike has severely eroded poor household purchasing power. Under the minimum calorie requirement approach too, through which poverty is defined in terms of a food poverty line which reflects the minimum food expenditure needed to achieve the minimum required level of caloric intake, it is found that compared to 1969-70, poverty increased in 2009-10 and the people of Pakistan are left to get lesser caloric intake even after thirty years. According to Pakistan Planning Commission (2009), overall poverty rate has jumped from 23.9 to 37.5 percent in the last three years. The following recent report of the Asian Development Bank is an eye opener for our policy makers:

“Pakistan’s education indicators are the worst in South Asia - the fact that the education index in Nepal and Bangladesh, two countries with significantly lower per capita incomes than Pakistan, is 10 to 20 percent higher than Pakistan is a clear indicator of the low priority accorded to education in Pakistan’s development policies. Pakistan’s public sector spending on education and health, at barely 2.1 percent of GDP, is significantly lower than that of other countries in the region. At the same time, experience in Pakistan shows that accelerating human development is as much an issue of increasing expenditure on social sectors as of improving the effectiveness of spending through better governance, and future social development initiatives must be designed keeping this in mind. The report further concludes that, in general, the capacity of the poor in Pakistan to access public entitlements like political processes, or goods and services which determine human development contrasts strikingly with that of the rich. The report provides a comprehensive commentary on the causes of the increase in poverty in the 1990s, and hypothesizes that poor governance is the key underlying cause of poverty in Pakistan. Corruption and political instability, which are both manifestations of governance problems, have resulted in waning business confidence, deteriorating economic growth, declining public expenditure on basic entitlements, low efficiency in delivery of public services, and a serious undermining of state institutions and rule of law, which in turn translates into lower investment levels and growth. The effects of poor governance have compounded the economic causes of rising poverty such as decline in GDP growth rate, increasing indebtedness, inflation, falling public investment and poor state of physical infrastructure. At the same time, social factors such as the highly unequal distribution of land, low level of human development, and persistent ethnic and sectarian conflicts are also obstacles to the achievement of long term sustained development. Environmental degradation is also closely interlinked with increasing poverty and has impacts on the health of the poor as on the unsustainability of their livelihoods.”

From the above report it seems that the problem of poverty now looks to be beyond control. Official planning and the market economy system have failed to alleviate poverty.

It is an inevitable fact that 70s and 80s was a golden era in poverty reduction but this declining trend in poverty was reversed in the 1990s after revival of “democracy”. The policies formulated to eradicate it during 90s and thereafter have failed to achieve their objectives. Official planning and the market economy system both have failed to lessen poverty. Due to rapid growth of population, the number of dependents is increasing; earners have to carry the burden of the increasing number of dependents. This situation is leading to decrease in the per capita income of the people of the country. The largest sector of the economy, the agriculture sector, is heading towards backwardness as 93 per cent of the farmers are concerned with small farms whose per capita land is less then 10 acres. This is forcing a decline in the proportion of GDP which can be spent on development and social sectors. The poor law and order situation has led to flight of capital as well as private sector investment. High inflation, Shortages (Food, energy, water, oil, gas), Unemployment and business closures among the many factors (There has been load-shedding of 12 to 18 hours due to which large number of SMEs, factories and mills closed which increased the unemployment ratios in the country and ultimately poverty ratios jumped even as per official figures from 23.9 to 37.5 percent( in the last three years), reduction of 100 billion rupees in the social sector budget which has badly affected development activities, has further worsened the situation. The issue of poverty in Pakistan has its significance for sustainable development. Long run development is not possible without protecting the rights of the vulnerable groups and the participation of the entire population in the development process.

The recent trends suggest that rapid economic growth over a prolonged period is the only way for reduction of poverty. According to the ADB report, poverty is spreading in Pakistan due to the rising population, high level corruption, political instability, agriculture backwardness, internal situation unequal income distribution, defence expenditure, increase in utility charges and rise in unproductive activities. There is poverty in Pakistan but Pakistan has almost all it takes to be the richest country on earth. The major problem facing Pakistan today is corruption and poor leadership. There are greedy people in Pakistan including our leaders who don’t care about their poor mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. Some leaders are too greedy and that is why Pakistan remains poor and becoming poorer. They come in power as saints and leave as devils. The president of Pakistan is a president for a few selected people. President is a president for only in the higher class and those who are his earning hands. The President and his team see no poverty and hunger. The president sees only money and money and nothing but money and shows no mercy; that is why the people of Pakistan are so poor. The present PPP regime has put the people in danger of starvation and unimaginable suffering.

A higher and sustained economic growth must be accompanied by other poverty alleviation measures are essential to reduce poverty. Coherent approach is needed to combat the social and cultural stigma attached to it and it should be combined with effective service delivery in all parts of the country. To date, the biggest reason for the failure of the programs has been the lackadaisical attitude of the government and lack of its commitment. Unless that is altered, change will remain elusive. Problems of high unemployment, floundering education system, crises of food, water and energy and population growth will have to be handled sharply to curb the poverty. Accelerating economic growth and maintaining macroeconomic stability, investing in human capital, Expanding social safety nets; restoration of investor confidence, eradicating corruption and improving governance are the building blocks for the bridge that will lead Pakistan into the prosperity Inshallah.