DefinePK

Abstract

ABSTRACT The mountain areas in Pakistan, though constituting a fairly large portion of total land area and supporting about 10% of the total population of 130 million of the country, have always been neglected and marginalised as far as development activities in them are concerned. There are a number of reasons for this state of affairs. In the first instance, they are not easily accessible because of difficult terrain. The means of communication, such as roads, are difficult and expensive to build and are therefore few in number and short in length. The road density in hilly regions is very low. Secondly, the population in mountain areas is sparce, dispersed and lacks technical skills and often appears to be conservative and hostile to outside interventions. A majority of people are poor and depend upon yields and income from land and livestock. People from many households are landless and work as land or migratory labour in other parts of the country and in foreign countries to manage subsistence level living. Land holdings are small and mostly without irrigation facilities.