floods was the other non-budgeted expense that was faced by 25 percent household. Additional other costs of wedding burdened 18 percent households. Around 14 percent faced loss or destruction of some consumption assets. The reduction or suspension of remittances adversely affected the budgets of 8 percent households. Six percent lost livestock during floods, the income of 6 percent was reduced due to injury and 2 percent had to bear expenses on cases pending in courts.
The report revealed that given the large share that households spend on basics like food and housing, there is little money left for education. Though the share of food in consumer inflation index is 38 percent the survey revealed that rural poor spend 63 percent of their income on food, beverages and tobacco. This huge spending leaves them with limited resources to spend on other necessities. The survey showed that these rural households spend only one percent of their budget on education, five percent on medical care, 16 percent on housing, fuel and lighting and 8 percent on laundry.
The availability of basic public services says a lot about the level of development in a village. In a survey of 76 selected villages, availability of services varied tremendously. Although nearly all villages were electrified, daily power outages of 7-18 hours were common. In fact, 93 percent of rural houses surveyed had access to electricity. The LPG cylinders were the basic kitchen fuel of 59 percent of the households. Eleven percent of the households had the privilege of natural gas connection through the pipeline. Twenty-six percent of the residents surveyed enjoyed fixed line telephone connection. Still the most amazing fact was the cellular phones were available in 100 percent households.
Only 18 percent had access to proper sewerage system and merely one percent has garbage collection services in their neighborhood. It was heartening to note that 80 percent of the households availed the immunization facilities provided by the government. Fifty one percent of the households were aware of family planning program and 43 percent of health awareness program and 43 percent household benefited from health awareness program.
The researchers pointed out that survey was a tough exercise still they feel that it provides support to Pakistan’s government as a way to contribute to pro-poor economic growth and improved food security. Conducted in three rounds between 2012 and 2014, the survey focused on a sample of rural households from three provinces: Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Two other rounds surveyed a sub-sample of farm households. Enumerators collected massive amounts of detailed data on everything from sources of income, assets and savings, loans and credit, to consumption and nutrition, education levels, migration, aspirations, participation in social safety nets, school facilities, and local prices.