The Pakistani Punjab comes out looking good in certain areas compared to Indian Punjab, while lagging behind in some others, notably literacy and poverty reduction, according to two new studies made by the World Bank.
| In other words, the important areas... |
A comparison between the two Punjabs was the subject of an informal presentation at the World Bank on Thursday by Ijaz Nabi, sector manager, economic policy, South Asia region. The population of Pakistani Punjab is 80 million, more than half of the country's, while that of the Indian Punjab is 25.3 million. Their respective GDPs are $32 billion and $14.6 billion, which form 52 percent and 2.5 percent of the national GDP, while in terms of area the Pakistani Punjab is more than four times the size on Indian Punjab, parts of which were made over to Haryana and Himachal.
| So the Pak side has three times the population of the Indian side, and a bit over half the GDP. The Pak side produces $400 peer year per capita, and the Indian side produces $577. |
In the former, agriculture represents 27 percent of economic activity, industry 22.5 percent and services 50.5 percent, whereas in the latter, the figures respectively are 39.3 percent, 24.6 percent and 36.2 percent. According to Nabi, in terms of overall poverty, it is 34.1 percent of the population in the Pakistani Punjab compared with only 6 percent in its Indian counterpart. The incidence of poverty is the highest in Pakistan's southern Punjab (40.4 percent), 31.8 percent on central Punjab and 29.8 percent in the northern part.
| Pakland has almost six times the poverty level of the Indian side. I'm still waiting for the part where they're not doing so bad... |
The literacy rate in Indian Punjab is 70 percent and only 45 percent in its Pakistani counterpart, while the net primary enrolment is 94 percent and 42 percent respectively.
| That'd be an indicator that the disparity's going to grow, and keep growing in the future, even without factoring in quality of the education received. |
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