Govt to include 4 more districts

KARACHI - In an initiative to extending the Union Council Based Poverty Reduction Programme to other four districts, the Sindh government has invited the proposals from Community based organisations to initiate scheme in various sectors, officials told The Nation.
Claiming the success story of this programme initiated in two districts, Kashmore-Kandhkot and Shikarpur on pilot basis, the provincial government planned to extend it in four other districts of the province, Thatta, Badin, Tharparkar and Jacobabad.
The Planning & Development Department’s initiative, which is being implemented through an non-governmental, Sindh Rural Support Programmes, in Sindh aims at improving the quality of life of communities especially of the vulnerable male and female poor living below the poverty line in rural areas that lack basic facilities.
Owing to positive impacts of the programme in the pilot districts, the Government of Sindh is now planning to replicate the programme interventions in four other districts of Sindh.
A senior official of the Planning and Development Department told The Nation that government intends to hire Sindh Rural Support Programmes and Community based organisations for the replication of Union Council Based Poverty Reduction Programme in four other districts of Sindh, Thatta, Badin, Tharparkar and Jacobabad districts.
However, the government has set October 5, 2009 as last date for submitting the proposals for community based organisations.
He said that the menace of poverty in Sindh is giving birth to different kinds of issues including social unrest, crime and increase in suicide attempts so in order to contain and eradicate poverty, PPP led coalition government of Sindh has initiated a number of projects/schemes.
The Union Council Based Poverty Reduction Programme (UCBPRP) is one of such major initiatives, which being extended other districts, he said, adding that for this purpose, a comprehensive poverty reduction project, based upon interventions specially focusing and targeting all the vulnerable and poor households that live below the poverty line in all the rural Union Councils of the above mentioned districts, is required to be implemented over a 36 months period.