ISLAMABAD, July 5: Pakistan’s major pro-poor indicators showed a very dismal performance in the first nine months of the last financial year (2004-05) despite an overall increase in poverty related expenditures, says an official report.

The third quarterly (July-March 2004-05) progress report on poverty reduction released by the Ministry of Finance has conceded that the performance of core sectors like education, health, population planning, rural development, food subsidies, low cost housing and inflation could not match even previous year’s results.

The report said that PRSP expenditures during July-March 2005 stood at Rs193 billion, which is 69 per cent of the annual projected expenditure for fiscal 2005. These expenditures are 23 per cent higher than the expenditures incurred during fiscal 2004.

A comparison of the last two fiscal years suggest that in 2004-05, six core poverty related sectors performed dismally in terms of utilization of funds as percentage of GDP when compared with previous year and five sectors performed better while three sectors remained static.

The sectors, which showed positive trends include roads and highways, social security and welfare, irrigation, land reclamation and law and order.

The official figures suggested that utilization in education sector stood at Rs74.4 billion but declined to 1.14 per cent of GDP when compared with previous year’s 1.2 per cent.

The expenditure in health sector also declined from 0.31 per cent of the GDP to 0.29 per cent of the GDP to Rs19.3 billion.

The expenditure on population planning even reduced by seven per cent in over terms when compared with a year before and in terms of GDP it reduced from 0.05 per cent to 0.04 per cent in 2005.

Food subsidies dropped by 76 per cent in 2005 when compared with 2004 and stood at Rs1.22 billion. As percentage of the GDP, the food subsidies declined by about four times and stood at 0.02 per cent of the GDP compared with 0.08 per cent in 2004.

The investments in low cost housing also declined by more than 41 per cent and its share in the GDP reduced to zero from 0.01 per cent a year before despite the government’s major initiatives to promote construction and housing sector.

Based on Pakistan social and living standard survey, the report said the gross enrolment at primary level has increased by 14 percentage points to 86 per cent in 2004-05 as compared to 2000-01.

Net enrolment at primary level increased to 52 per cent as compared to 42 per cent in 2001 but a lot more need to be done to achieve 100 per cent net primary enrolment by 2015.

The literacy rate (aged 10 years and older) improved by eight percentage pints to 53 per cent in 2004-05 compared to 2000-01. Both male and female literacy rates have improved but the female literacy level is 25 percentage points lower than male literacy rate.