ISLAMABAD, May 31: The government on Wednesday termed its 2001 poverty assessment methodology flawed and said the overall poverty level had declined to 23.9 per cent.

Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Dr Akram Sheikh told newsmen that the number of people “living below poverty line now stood at 39 million”.

He said the new methodology had been verified by a committee, comprising Secretary Planning Akram Malik and representatives of the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme and Germany’s Department for International Development (DFID) and it “puts the (incidence of) poverty at 23.9 per cent”, much below the government’s earlier estimates, which had put it at 25.6 per cent.

Mr Akram Malik said that using the same methodology, the poverty level in 2001 was now estimated to be 34 per cent while the earlier ‘flawed’ methodology had put it at 32.1 per cent.

Without elaborating the new parameters for poverty assessment, he said the subject would be dealt with in a chapter in the economic survey and annual plan.

Conflicting poverty figures cited by various government officials is creating doubts about the poverty-related data.

Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub said that poverty had been recorded at 34.6 per cent in 2000-01.

Interestingly, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Dr Salman Shah said on Wednesday that the poverty figure had been estimated at 25.6 per cent under the Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement (PSLM) survey.

Pakistan’s development partners, including the World Bank, have been insisting for a couple of years that 38 per cent of Pakistan’s population was living below poverty line and the 2001 survey contained massive procedural and calculation flaws.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday said that poverty had been reduced from 34.46 per cent in 2000-01 to 23.9 per cent in 2004-05. He said that urban poverty had declined from 22.7 per cent to 14.9 per cent and rural poverty had dropped from 39.26 to 28.1 per cent.