Himalayan News Service

Islamabad, June 4:

Living standards of Pakistanis have significantly improved during fiscal 2004-05 that ends June 30, claims a Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) survey. The PSLM is based on a survey of 77,000 households from across the country and covers the period since June 2004. Its full details will be known only in October-November when complete data for the fiscal will be made available. It has been patterned on the World Bank-sponsored Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ) and deals with eight-nine areas like health, education, electricity consumption, housing, living conditions, demographic conditions, gas consumption, income-expenditure and use of tap water for drinking. Dawn quoted Ashfaq Hassan, the economic adviser to the prime minister as saying the PSLM would be conducted every alternate year as advised by the World Bank. “Almost all the PSLM indicators have shown improvement since 2000-01.”