ISLAMABAD: Informal institutions have wreaked havoc on the lives of poor villagers in the state`s absence in rural areas, Javed Ahmed Malik said on Monday at the launch of his book Transforming Villages: How grassroots democracy can end rural poverty at a rapid pace.

`Absence of the state in the villages resulted in the extreme violation of human rights, as people took the law in their own hand,` he explained.

Mr Malik said bottom-up reforms and a new formal institution at the grassroots level are needed, as the top-down centralised model of the state has failedto address challenges in rural areas.

Speakers at the launch, which organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), highlighted the need for modes to fight rural poverty and transform people`s lives at the village and community levels.

They argued that sustained growth could not be achieved unless villages are considered a part of development plans.

Mr Malik said Pakistan needs a new participatory institution of the state at the locallevelto reduce the power and influence of the local political elite.

The stateisnotrelevant atthe village level, he said, as there are no efhcient and effective public services available in rural areas compared to urban areas.He said millions of people in Pakistan are below the poverty line, `whereas around 71 million of them live in rural areas as per the recent planning ministry`s survey`.

`Disparities between urban and rural lifestyles and development trajectories are not accidental but due to serious political neglect and an urban bias in the development policies,` he added.

He said successive governments that have ruled the country were responsible for the appalling rural livelihood.

Poverty and deplorable living standards are essentially a rural phenomenon, he said.

`We should form a village level institution, as an extension of the executivebranch of the state with legal structure and fiscally empowered,` he said.

National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) CEO Dr Rashid Bajwa also blamed policymakers for the lack of development across the country.

`NRSP is a model of social enterprise, which is the largest social enterprise in the country, to create a positive impact in the society. Rural growth centres of the NRSP are the successful model to transform the villages that NRSP has initiated,` he added.

Other speakers included economist and social scientist Safiya Aftab, Islamic International University Islamabad Associate Professor Dr Husnul Amin and SDPI Senior Research Fellow Dr Sajjad Amin.