Islamabad: The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer by the day in Pakistan.
This has been disclosed in a report prepared by the country’s Pakistan Planning Commission. In its report titled ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)’, the Commission said that the gap between the richest and the poorest 20 per cent in the country had widened from a ratio of 3.76 to 4.15 in the last four years.
Released by the country’s Finance Ministry last evening, the report also gives an account of the progress on the implementation of the poverty reduction strategy in the third quarter of the current financial year.
"A measure of inequality is the ratio of highest to the lowest quintile, which measures the gap between the rich and the poor. The government is fully aware of the widening gap, and the PRSP aims to design policies to narrow this gap," the Daily Times quoted the report as saying.
Both poverty and inequality estimates are based on the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) Survey 2004-05, said the paper.
In terms of inequality in the country’s society, the consumption inequality had increased marginally in Pakistan between 2000-01 and 2004-05, the report said.
Consumption inequality increased in urban areas as well as rural areas during this period, it added.
According to the report, poverty had also witnessed a further decline in both urban and rural areas, but was more pronounced in the latter, the report said.
The poverty gap declined from 7.03 in 2000-01 to 4.76 in 2004-05, and the severity of poverty declined from 2.13 in 2000-01 to 1.48 in 2004-05, indicating that most of the poor are gathered around the poverty line.
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