PESHAWAR: Khyber Pal(htunkhwa information minister Shah Farman claimed on Sunday that no one in the province would be living below poverty line by end of the current financial year.

Quoting a recent Pakistan Bureau of Statistics` Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) , he told a press conference that the number of those living below poverty line had declined by half under the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government in the province.

`A recent PBS survey shows that the number of those living below poverty line has gone down by nearly half to 12.27 per cent,` he said, adding that a similar survey in 2013 had put the number of those living below poverty line at 23.86 per cent in KP, the highest in the country then.

He said that a huge number of people had ceased tolivein poverty.

`I am sure that no one in KP would be living below poverty line by end of the current financial year,` he claimed.

He said that according to HIES, ratio of poor in Punjab had gone upfrom 14.5 per cent to 19.6 per cent and the same figure in Sindh had jumped from 18.35 per cent to 23.4 per cent.

He said that the number of average earners per household in KP had also gone up from 2.04 to 2.18. Mr Farman said that the number of average earners had dropped in Sindh and Punjab.

He said that the PTIled government was the most efficient in the country. He claimedthat the federal government wanted to stop them from playing their role as real opposition.

The provincial information minister lambasted the federal government ministers for criticising the JIT investigating the Panama leaks case.

`Those questioning the state institutions should know that the JIT is the extension of the apex court as it was set up under the Supreme Court orders,` Mr Farman said. He said that by attacking the JIT, the PML-N leaders had just repeated their own history of attacking the Supermen Court.

`The people will not let them attack the state intuitions,` he said, adding that PTI stood with the institutions.Mr Farman also challenged the PML-N KP president Amir Muqam for a public debate. `If Mr Muqam proved me wrong then I will quit politics,` he said.

He also criticised the federal government for not giving the province its due share of electricity. He said that if the federal government provided Khyber Pakhtunl(hwa with 2,000 megawatts of electricity, which was 200MW less than its due share, there would be no power outagesin the province.

He said that if the federal government paid Khyber Pakhtunkhwa its net hydel profit under the AGN Kazi formula it would be able to undertake power projects thrice the capacity of the Dasu hydropower project.