Govt to utilize water resources for benefit of country
Staff Report

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan and its leadership are committed to utilizing the water resources for the progress of the country and welfare of its people.
This was stated by by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission/ Minister of State Dr. Muhammad Aklran Sheikh while addressing the launchining ceremony of Human Development Report 2006 here at the auditorium of planning copmmission on Tuesday.
The report on the theme “Beyond scaricity :power ,poverty and global water crisis has been contributed by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) highlighting the development index of 177 countries of the world including Pakistan and emphasing achieving the eight Millinum Development Goals (MDGs) very much depend on strengtheniong water governance at local , national and global levels.
The main imperatives of the report are: make water a humanright-and mean it, draw up national strategies for water and sanitation , support national plans with international aid and develop a global action plan.
According to the report, in the Human Development Index (HDI) Pakistan ranks 134 out of 177 countries. Jan Vandemoortele, Resident Representative UNDP, diplomats, senior officials fromother UN agencies and the government were amongst those present.
Dr.Akram Sheikh said that Pakistan has moved one step up in the report while some of the copuntrirs in this region have moved down by one or two steps.
He added that Pakistan has done extremely well during the last few years as its GDP growth has registered 7-8 perceny in the past five years. Dr.Sheikh added nomally Pakistan has moved in the positive direction in the past seven years and continue to move in the right direction in future as well to achieve the objective of higher economic growth.
He regretted that due to the unresolved problems in South Asia poor people in this region are suffering. The Deputy Chairman Planning Commission said Pakistan is sincerely trying to resolve all the the outstanding disputes with India .
He urged the Indian leadership to rise to the occasion and said Pakistan was willing to discuss various options to resolve the problems with India for the progress of region and benefit of its people. “Withour sovling the problems we will not be able to move forrward”, he remarked.
He said that poverty in Pakistan has come down by 10 percentage point.
Dr.Sheikh said that social sector spending expenditures in the country have gone up significantly. He said that expendidures relating to human development have improved. Dr.Sheikh said that the government is spending around 5 percent on poverty relating expenditures in the financial year 2006- 07 while in the past its was used to be a smaller figure.