ISLAMABAD -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) in a report has depicted a bleak picture about the poverty situation in Pakistan, saying almost 35 percent of the population was living below the poverty line.

Releasing the report at a press conference in Islamabad Monday, the Country Director of the ADB Marshuk Ali Khan said almost 47 million people are below the poverty line.

The report said more than 12 million people have been added to the ranks of the poor in Pakistan between 1993 and l999.

During this period, the level of poverty worsened from 26 percent of the population falling below the poverty line to 32 percent.

He said decelerated growth, lack of development budget and severe drought were behind the increasing poverty, IRNA reported.

The report says that inequality has also intensified in the l990s with income distribution in urban areas being consistently more unequal than rural areas. In villages as well, the report shows that there is more poverty in southern Punjabis compared to other parts of the country.

The ADB country director said while poverty has intensified in the last decade, the country's long-term prospects for achieving high growth are also being compromised by the low level of social sector investment. He referred to UNDP's Human Development Index, which shows that Pakistanis' level of human development is low for its level of income.

Pakistan's education indicators are the worst in South Asia -- the fact that the education index in Nepal and Bangladesh, two countries with significantly lower per capita income than Pakistan is 10 to 20 percent higher than Pakistan is a clear indicator of the low priority accorded to education in Pakistan's development policies.

The report concluded that the capacity of the poor in Pakistan to access to public entitlements like political processes or goods and services, which determine human development contrasts strikingly with that of the rich.

The report provides a comprehensive commentary on the causes of the increase in poverty in the l990s and hypothesizes that poor governance is the key underlying cause of poverty in Pakistan.

Corruption and political instability which are both manifestations of governance problems have resulted in waning business confidence, deteriorating economic growth, declining public expenditure on basic entitlements, low efficiency in delivery of public services and a serious undermining of state institutions and rule of law. This in turn led to lower investment levels and growth.

The effects of poor governance have compounded the economic causes of rising poverty such as decline in GDP growth rate, increasing indebtedness, inflation, falling public investment and poor state of physical infrastructure.

Marshuk Ali Khan said the Asian Development Bank is to provide 2.5 billion dollars of assistance over the next four years under its medium term country strategy and program. He said during the current calendar year the bank will be providing about 1.1 billion dollars to Pakistan, IRNA reported.

The senior economic advisor of the bank Naveed Hamid praised he devolution plan under which the delivery of services in the social and other poverty focussed sectors has been decentralized to the local governments.