ISLAMABAD: Ameer Ahmed, a 35-year-old resident of Hayat Jat village of district Thatta, is among 79 percent of the population of this area that lives in poverty and without basic necessities such as health care, clean drinking water and education.
Developmental experts working in these two districts believe that in the past five years, the poverty stricken people of the coastal areas of Sindh have started demanding the basics from politicians and bureaucrats.
People have got CNICs from Nadra and have registered to vote.
Development practitioners say it will be seen in the next general elections whether the people vote again for known feudal lords or vote them out of the political arena.
According to a baseline survey of the coastal areas of Badin and Thatta, 79 percent households in the coastal areas of Badin and Thatta fall below the poverty line when it is defined as those surviving on a dollar per day.
The survey was conducted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in collaboration with the Sindh Coastal Community Development Project (SCCDP). Assuming the poverty line is $1.25 per day, the figure rises to 85 percent of the population.
The severity of poverty in the locality can be gauged by the fact that during a visit to Kaiti Bunder, a fisherman was spotted in his wife’s clothes. “We are poor and cannot afford to buy clothes for ourselves,” he said.
Project director, Muhammad Umar Memon said, “In the face of such a severe level of poverty, ADB provided $40m for the SCCDP for a period of six years.” He said that an independent poverty assessment would be carried out next month to measure the project’s success.
According to the survey findings, human development indicators depict a general dissatisfaction with health and sanitation facilities. On the positive side, a majority of household heads (82 percent) perceived that they could vote freely.
They also said that most households (56 percent) allow women to seek wage labour. Alarmingly, the proportion of working children is 29 percent.
This was reinforced by Ameer Ahmed, resident of village Hayat Jat located in district Thatta, when he informed a media team from Islamabad that of 35 children in the village only two to three went to school due to inaccessibility. “No girl goes to school from this village,” he said. Further, the villagers were happy that they were able to get the solar lighting scheme but health facilities were critical for them as a Basic Health Unit (BHU) was located 30km away at Gharhu village.
Top policy makers have thus far failed to come up with solutions to bring people out of poverty on a sustainable basis.
The PPP-led government, which won the election with the slogan of roti, kapara and makan for the people of Pakistan, did not bother to resolve the controversy over exact estimates of poverty.
Internews
