Pakistan, Sept. 6 -- Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Saturday clarified his remarks regarding new provinces, saying most of Pakistan's social and human resource indicators had continuously declined during the last fifteen years that needed significant improvement for achieving the national development goals.

He said the main reason for the country's poor performance in the social sector was the lack of transfer of powers and resources to the grassroots level after the 18th Amendment and the centralization of powers at the provincial level.

Ahsan Iqbal said that in order to accelerate the process of national development, Pakistan needed to overcome its weaknesses in human resour...