MURREE: Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto today [July 1] declared 1976-77 a “year of social welfare and rural development” in Pakistan and hoped that citizens and public servants would combine their efforts and devote their energies to make it a success. In a message inaugurating the year, the [PM] said the task of building a welfare society, for which ground had been levelled, “has to be a joint enterprise” of the people and the Government. “In fact, the major contribution has to come from the people themselves”, he emphasised.

“Men and women, jointly in their homes and their assemblages, have to decide for themselves what has to be done by them to improve their crop yields and promote healthy growth and education of their children,” he said. [He] said the rural population should be attuned to the goal of … the nation’s self-sufficiency in food. Reaffirming the … Government’s objective to work … for a happier and stronger Pakistan, he said that without restructuring rural society all efforts to provide inputs would fail to yield their full benefit. The people in villages … should … form themselves into groups … to consider their problems. — News agencies

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2026