ISLAMABAD, May 7: Provinces have urged the federal government to execute its plan to instal 35,000 tubewells in rural areas through the district governments.

The federal government intends to entrust the Rs10 billion programme to the ministry of environment.

The demand was made by representatives of the four provinces at a two-day national consultation on Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper-II (2006-09) organised by the ministry of finance. They said the environment ministry was not the proper body for executing the scheme at the union council level. The decision, they said, was against the spirit of the powers devolution plan.

Addressing the concluding session of the meeting on Saturday, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Salman Shah said the government would include the impact of globalisation on poverty and gender mainstreaming in its PRSP-II that was aimed at reducing poverty through employment generation.

“You can either go to globalisation or globalisation will come to you. There is no defence against it,” Dr Shah said, adding that he saw opportunities, not threat, in the new world trade order.

“Therefore, a strategy will be formed and included in the PRSP-II to gauge its impact on the country’s poverty.”

He said globalisation provided an opportunity to sell Pakistani products in international markets. This could help generate employment locally which, he said, was the only way to eradicate poverty.

He said according a survey conducted in 2001, 32 per cent Pakistanis lived below the poverty line. However, according to a 2005-survey, their number had dropped to 25.6 per cent, but it was still a big percentage.

He said the government wanted to achieve millennium development goals of the United Nations well before the 2015 deadline and the PRSP-II would be designed in such a way that it would help the government achieve these goals.

Like Sri Lanka, Philippines and other regional countries, he said, Pakistan should also remove hurdles in the way of export of female labour. He said it was unfortunate that women were playing their role in development of the country’s economy but had little or no say in ownership of assets.

“In Bangladesh, you can see women flooding garment factories early in the morning. I don’t know if there is anything wrong with our culture or laws that do not allow women to work, develop their capacity and get economic emancipation,” Dr Shah said, adding that he supported the proposal to increase women’s quota in public services.

During consultations, representatives of the provinces urged the government to ensure accountability of social sector spending to save taxpayers’ money from going into the pockets of a few people.

Participants asked the government to develop in the PRSP-II a national livestock policy that could encourage growth, generate employment and facilitate easy loans to farmers.

They proposed land reforms and equal share of women if the government decided to distribute some of the state-owned land among people.

The participants urged the government to sign all international conventions and agreements on environment and ensure environment-friendly development at the grassroots level.

They sought a ban on drilling of private tubewells in Balochistan by some influential Sardars saying that the underground water table had depleted to a dangerous level. They said more than 22,000 tubewells were drilled recently in the province and the practice was still continuing.