Freedom from‘Inequality’ Table 8.2: Indicators of Regional Disparities 2001-02 2005-06 2010-11 2015-16 2017-18 2018-19 1. Ratio of Urban to Rural Income Per Capita Index 0.458 0.628 0.532 2. Ratio of Provincial* per capita Income Index 0.730 0.450 0.584 OVERALL INDEX 0.578 0.532 0.557 *Highest to Lowest Provincial per capita income 0.482 0.486 0.484 0.492 0.456 0.474 0.457 0.426 0.441 Latest Year 0.469 0.385 0.425 The worrying long-term trend is the falling behind of Balochistan since 2001-02. This is demonstrated by the variation in Provincial growth rates shown in Box 8.2. Box 8.2: Trend in Regional Disparities: Balochistan Falls Behind Annual per capita real GRP growth rate(%) 1999-2000 to 2007-08 2007-08 to 2015-16 2015-16 to 2018-19 Punjab 2.6 1.2 2.6 Sindh 3.7 0.4 1.8 Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 2.6 1.7 1.9 Balochistan-0.3-0.3-0.6 Pakistan 2.7 0.9 2.1 There has been a wide divergence in the growth rates of the regional economies of the four Provinces of Pakistan over the last two decades. The variation of growth rates in per capita and Gross Regional Product among the Province is shown below as estimated by Pasha(2021): The very striking fact is the negative growth in Balochistan since 1999-2000. The Province has continued to fall behind due to the high cost of infrastructure and services because of low population density, increasing shortage of water, drying up of Sui Gas resources, and relatively low literacy. This has represented a major weakening of the Federation and necessitated special arrangements for security in Balochistan, which today has a large number of missing persons. 8.3 Poverty The last measure is the key indicator of the incidence of poverty in Pakistan. Estimates have been derived from SPDC and the World Bank. There has been a somewhat cyclical pattern of the level of poverty in Pakistan, as shown in Chart 8.2, in line with variations in the growth rate of per capita income. The cost of basic needs approach has been used to derive the poverty line in different years. It is estimated that the incidence of poverty 73