ISLAMABAD, June 8: The federal government is expected to allocate Rs16 billion in the next budget for alleviation of poverty. The amount will be offered to 1.2 million deserving people in the country.

Official sources told Dawn on Tuesday that Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali had tentatively agreed to allocate Rs16 billion for the poor, besides enhancing Zakat funding through Baitul Mal. Each deserving person would be given Rs1,000 a month under the proposed programme.

The recommendations of the prime minister's task force on poverty and employment generation have been submitted to Mr Jamali. He has been requested to ensure some firm steps in the new budget to reduce poverty and create jobs.

The task force, sources said, had made five major recommendations. It called upon the government to ensure clean drinking water for every one and provide adequate health cover, particularly in rural areas where 80 per cent of the country's population lives.

The Asian Development Bank has agreed to provide a $350 million Access to Justice Loan for overhauling the judicial system. In this regard, the task force proposed to appoint more judges to take care of millions of pending cases which, in fact, were making the poor poorer.

It was recommended that jobs should be provided to the poor and uneducated people's skills should be developed. The task force called for strengthening the Small and Medium Enterprises for achieving the goal.

It proposed the setting up of a permanent commission on poverty and employment generation. The task force believed that there could not be any effective dent in poverty without achieving 7.5pc GDP growth.