To Assess the Trends of Living and Poverty in a Desert Climate

Pakistan is a developing country having about 17.2% of the population below poverty line and its economy mainly depends on agriculture. Cholistan desert is one of the areas with extreme dry weather conditions in the country, well known for wide spread geographical area with large not in use lands. The population belongs to the poorest areas of the province with projected population of 0.185 million up to 2015. In this study a survey of 17 villages was conducted to gather information regarding population and their economic condition. Poverty status in the area with reference to the International Monetary Fund and Bureau of Statistics of Pakistan has been assessed with inflation rate up to year 2014. The average family size of the area is 6.6 and per capita income per month was PKRs.2309, so the Official Poverty Line came out as PKRs. 15,124 per household per month. During the field survey of the targeted 17 villages, it was observed that 95% of targeted population was below the poverty. On the other hand, the rest of only 5% fall above the poverty line as their earning was above PKRs. 15,124 per month. Income of 100 percent population was below US$ 1.00 per day. Livestock is the main source of income of the targeted community, but they were unable to use it in full potential because of unavailability of water. On the other hand, the off farm income was very low due to scarcity of resources & employment opportunities. People neither able to get a proper livelihood in their settlements nor ready to leave desert area because livestock rearing is their major occupation which is depending on “Tobas” and grazing land.