Govt forms body to get exact levels of poverty in country

ISLAMABAD: In order to ascertain exact levels of poverty and inequality, the government has constituted a high powered committee under Chairmanship of Dr Akmal Hussain and comprising 13 other members with the mandate to come up with exact estimates both at national and provincial levels.

Its first time that the high-powered committee is mandated to estimate provincial poverty estimates simultaneously because the federal government in the past never released provincial poverty estimates despite having numbers because of provincial and regional sensitivities.

According to official estimates, Pakistan’s 24.3 percent population was living below poverty on the basis of 2015-16 results and now the incumbent PTI-led regime after coming into power was going to assess the prevalence of poverty first time on the basis of data collected during the fiscal year 2018-19.

“This high-powered committee has been given mandate to update poverty line for 2018-19 and estimate national and provincial Cost of Basic Needs (CBN) poverty and inequality numbers based on latest HIES data” official notification issued by Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives states while referring to Terms of Reference (ToRs) of this high-powered committee.

Initially, the committee was constituted under Chairmanship of Dr Nadeemul Haq who is currently serving as Vice Chancellor Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) but later on the chairmanship of committee was assigned to renowned economist Dr Akmal Hussain.

There are five ToRs of the high-powered committee including estimate provincial poverty and inequality numbers on HICS 2015-16, update poverty line for 2018-19 and estimate national and provincial CBN poverty and inequality numbers based on latest HIES data, prepare a draft report on provincial poverty and inequality estimates based on HICS 2015-16 and HIES 2018-19, estimate Multi Poverty Index (MPI) and MPI Plus at national, provincial and districts levels to report multidimensional poverty using PSLM data for 2020 and analysis of the data for poverty and inequality, its dynamics and causes.

The official sources said that Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) conducted Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES) for 2018-19 and this data of over 24,000 households from all four provinces was collected prior to outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic so the latest estimates of poverty will assess below the poverty line before the outbreak of this deadly virus. Now PBS has been asked to undertake a sample survey to assess prevalence of poverty after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. This sample survey will reflect the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the prevalence of poverty in Pakistan.

Pakistan had introduced the Cost of Basic Needs approach to assess poverty in the country as it included the cost of education, health and other basic needs. Earlier, the calorie- based intake approach on per day was used to assess poverty.

The official sources said that the high-powered committee had conducted two meetings so far and it was hoped that the committee would finalise its report within this calendar year.