ISLAMABAD, Dec 18: Planning Commission’s Deputy Chairman Sardar Aseff Ahmad Ali said on Thursday that poverty had skyrocketed to above 40 per cent in the country, leaving millions helpless.

Addressing a two-day seminar held by the Rural Support Programmes (RSP) network, he said people were facing a spectre of unprecedented poverty as a consequence of the policies of the last government. The seminar was attended by development activists.

Mr Ali said the government had launched a massive Benazir Income Support Programme to provide food security and a safety net to the poor.

He said networks such as the RSP could play an instrumental role in creating a grassroots mechanism for delivering services and reaching the poor.

He said that the previous government had increased imports, ‘dolarised’ the economy and transformed it into a consumer economy. Filling markets with imported products had resulted in loss of the country’s productive capacity, he said.

The participants were informed that RSPs were present in 3,165 union councils in 93 districts and they had formed over 131,000 community organisations comprising 2,315,978 members.