ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Planning Development and Reforms on Wednesday informed the Senate that about 29.5 per cent of the country’s population is living below the poverty line.
In a written reply, the ministry said that approximately 55 million people are living below the poverty line and the ratio is calculated by using the latest available estimates of Household Integrated Economic Survey data (HIES) 2013-14.
The Cost of Basic Needs (CBN) method determines the poverty line by using minimum consumption bundle comprised of food and non-food essential consumables necessary to live.
In this regard, a food poverty line is calculated by taking the average spending on food of households, based on minimum threshold of 2,350 level of calorie intake and calculates expenditure on non-food items like shelter, clothing, education and health, to obtain a CBN poverty line, which can be regularly updated for inflation, using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to track poverty over time.
This poverty line is translated into a monthly Rs 3,030 per adult, he added.
