Stale meat everywhere

The municipal slaughter house is in a shambles while butchers have been selling meat of dead animals in different parts of the district.

It is a pity that the stale meat is being sold without check. Insiders told this correspondent that the illegal practice was going under the nose of supervisory staff which allegedly shared booty. Illegal slaughtering at private places also adds to the pollution.

The butchers have reportedly formed an association that provides protection to its members. People can hardly challenge the ‘influential’ butchers who sell stale meat.

A majority of people have turned to buying white meat where birds and chickens are slaughtered before the customers’ eyes. However, there is no surety that the birds are healthy and not dead.

It is about time the tehsil council should bring to book the slaughter house superintendent, veterinarian, the contractor and other staff.

Visitors to the local Jinnah Library have to bear humidity as its central airconditioning system has been out of order for the last six months.

The public sector library was set up at a spacious apartment of the Trust Plaza. It caters to the needs of students, teachers, researchers and scholars. The visitors are facing ordeal these days while consulting reference books.

The library management and governing body are supposed to remove the defects in the airconditioning to provide its visitors conducive atmosphere.

The governing body has always turned a blind eye to the plight of library. Knowledge, it seems, has become a commonplace pursuit. The government has earmarked billions of rupees on education but little has so far been spent on its promotion.

In the face of decline in business, cinema halls in the district have been attracting viewers by picturizing obscene films. Religious circles are silent over producing such films and display of posters. The cinema owners do not even avoid picturizing Indian songs that are a bane of youth.

Only few people believe unabated practice would spoil the young generation and do much harm. The film financiers are more interested in amassing some bucks fast.

It is high time the people at the helm should check the menace and provide healthy entertainment.

Water and Sanitation Agency and Gujranwala Development Authority have approved their budgets for 2002-03.

At a meeting held recently, Wasa presented a budget of Rs94.16 million and the GDA of Rs110.80 million.

District Nazim Fayyaz Ahmad Chattha presided over the meeting. Governing body’s members District Coordinating Officer Iftikhar Ahmad Khan, GDA Director General Pervez Sultan, Wasa Managing Director Muhammad Aslam Khan Niazi and other officers were present.

The Nazim said five development schemes of Wasa were completed under the Annual Development Programme with an expenditure of Rs94.9 million while 19 schemes were completed under the Khushhal Pakistan Programme at a cost of Rs34.1 million during the previous fiscal.

He said the development projects would be included in the current fiscal following an approval by the government. He said all the branches of post offices would receive water bills on behalf of Wasa in future.

Sewerage tax of Rs75 to Rs300 for each month would be received from small and cottage industries, welfare associations and Pakistan Electric Fan Manufacturing association.

The GDA DG and finance director informed the meeting that the government had provided Rs31.367 million to complete the development schemes under the KPP while Rs28,230 million would be spent on 15 development projects during the current fiscal.

NWFP’s financial crunch

ASK finance managers of the NWFP, and they would tell you as to how difficult it was to prepare a budget for a province that in theory should have been one of the richest federating units, but in practice was struggling hard to keep its head above water.

Pray don’t be misled by the dry statistics of our tie-and-suit-wearing finance minister! A bureaucrat of yester years, Farid Rehman, excels at giving a feel-good impression. If he talks about the uplift projects, the NWFP plans to undertake in the current fiscal year, he is telling only half of the truth. The remaining half is that the so-called mega projects, including the Lowari Tunnel, are all federally funded.

The fact is that behind the facade of the good-sounding budget speech lies a bitter truth that the Frontier province is no longer able to finance its own developmental plan.

The problem is that federal subvention has come down from Rs4.2 billion to Rs3.9 billion. Province’s own receipts remained static and constant while Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan benefited because of straight transfers — Punjab (57.88 per cent) owing to its large share on account of population, and Sindh and Balochistan due to their shares on account of oil & gas — leaving the NWFP to balance an ever increasing expenditure with dwindling resources.

The province’s only hope in this frustrating budgetary exercise was a net profit from the hydel power, which has also remained constant at Rs6 billion for the last three years or so.

The federal government being a constitutional guarantor has failed to make Wapda cough up what is rightfully ours. Though Wapda has been forced to pay through its skin to the Independent Power Producers to avoid humiliation and embarrassment internationally, it feels no qualm in denying payments to a federating unit.

The federal government on its part has been playing a turkey. Though committees were formed and assurances made, nothing happened.

And the erratic transfers from the federal government have added insult to the injury; what justification is there for the government that paid Rs7.5 billion — roughly 25 per cent of the NWFP’s total resources — in June, the last month of the fiscal year?

On the one hand we suffered from the erratic transfers and on the other our expenditures increased for no fault of ours.

The NWFP, like the other provinces, is required to finance its entire Annual Development Programme. Its pay and pension bill has increased to Rs4.5 billion owing to the raise announced last year while the electricity bill has jumped up from Rs1.2 billion to Rs2 billion due to increase in power tariff.

But even then, the government is squeezing the last drop of blood from the NWFP’s weak financial skeleton which owes Rs43 billion to the federal government. It has already repaid Rs73 billion — Rs63 billion interest and Rs7 billion as part of the principal amount. In effect, what has been returned to the government is 180 per cent of the actual borrowed amount.

The irony is that while seeking loan restructuring and re-scheduling from international donors and lenders, the federal government does not consider the same remedy for its federating units, let alone passing on the debt relief it received on account of its U-turn on Afghanistan and support to War on Terrorism.

Now where does that leave us? The NWFP will pay Rs5 billion on account of debt servicing and borrow Rs5.4  billion from the World Bank to partly finance its ADP. Thus, the province has been left to wheedle the district governments into doing without funds.

The problem is that the district governments have no such facility, like the provincial governments have, of borrowing money from the State Bank of Pakistan to offset its financial burden. The result: if the province does not get the money monthly, the financial squeeze will have to be passed on to the district governments.

If the government requires the provinces to monthly transfer money to the districts, there also has to be a mechanism by way of which the federal government could ensure timely payments to its units. But there seems no solution to this; the practice will go on.

The grievances of the NWFP do not end here: the Centre has not promised a single penny this fiscal yet to the funds allocated to offset the negative impact of Afghan refugees on social infrastructure — the rehabilitation programme. Last year, it had allocated Rs92.5 million.

Can any sensible man calculate the damage done to our infrastructure owing to the presence of millions of Afghan refugees in the country for over two decades?

So how can the NWFP get fiscal space it badly needs?

The answer is: firstly, the federal government needs to uncap the net profits, compel Wapda to come to terms and settle the issue once and for all. Secondly, it should give the much-needed debt relief not only to the NWFP, but also to all provinces. Thirdly, the Centre should ensure timely transfer of payments. And finally, the federal government should shed some of its tax collection powers in favour of the provinces to make them self-reliant.

What does the NWFP need to do? Options are limited, but workable: it should broaden its tax net and improve its tax collection system. Officials acknowledge that the province’s own receipts could easily be increased to Rs5.5 billion.

In the long term the NWFP can build and tap its hydel power potential and sell its product to Wapda or to others on special rebate to encourage industries.

But unless the federal government gives special attention to the NWFP, province’s financial problems will keep growing and becoming more serious in the years to come.

The 50th birthday of a Faiz book

IT SEEMS the local office of the Pakistan Academy of Letters was looking for an occasion to hold a function as I have never heard of a celebration when a book completes 50 years of its publication. Yet Kazy Javed, the resident director of PAL, did just that.

Dast-i-Saba was published when Faiz was in jail, accused of participating in a conspiracy with army officers of Rawalpindi. This book, his second poetic collection, first appeared in December, 1952. It created a storm, both for its contents and the circumstances under which it was written. Its second edition came up in February 1953 and the third in March 1954. I hurried to purchase it lest it again went out of print and paid a princely amount of three rupees for this slender book of 118 pages. (I had paid half the amount for Naqsh-i-Faryadi). The first three poems in it are the same which appeared in the last edition of Naqsh-i-Faryadi. but Faiz chose to include them as he felt they were more in tune with the poems appearing in Dast-i-Saba. It was to commemorate the publication of this book that the PAL invited Dr Salim Akhtar the other day to preside over a function in its offices. The main speaker on the occasion was Dr Anis Nagi. Amjad Tufail and Imran Malik also expressed their views.

The short introduction to the book, written by Faiz himself, is thought provoking. Enunciating that ‘life is not a pool of stagnant water,’ he advocates the need for movement and struggle. However, it would be wrong to assess the entire poetry of Faiz as of one committed to any doctrine as such. He was an impulsive person and whatever came to his mind at a time was reduced by him to poetry. That is why his romantic poems have the same impact as those with revolutionary ideas. His thoughts are mature but not rigid; his maturity has the capacity to blend. Amjad Tufail expressed similar views about Faiz. He said his poems reflecting progressive views were in the traditional style of Urdu poetry. Dr Anis Naqi, however, was of the view that Faiz was not a progressive poet as one considers Ali Sardar Jafri to be. He said that since Faiz belonged to the higher strata of society, his progressive ideas did not have the required depth. As such, he was more of a romantic than a progressive poet.

In his presidential remarks, Dr Salim Akhtar said that despite the fact that the last century had the poet of the stature of Allama Iqbal yet Faiz, living in the same period, made his presence felt in literary circles and gained immense popularity. He distinguished himself by propounding modern ideas while adhering to the conventional and classical style. In the process, he gave new meanings to old and worn out words and phrases.

Despite the sultry weather, a large number of people turned up to attend the function. The best part of it was that it started dead on time.

IT WAS at the same function that I met Muhammad Islam Shah whom I like to call Baba-i-Radio only because of the years of his confinement in Broadcasting House. He has served there as a senior official and is held in esteem for his profound knowledge of music. In addition, he is a poet, a newspaper columnist, and a staunch protagonist of the Punjabi language. It was nice to hear from him all that happened during the three day international Punjabi moot in England which he attended and even read a paper on the occasion.

Earlier, the chairman of the World Punjabi Congress, Fakhar Zaman, had told me about the resounding success of the conference held in London during May this year. It was attended by almost 250 delegates from 20 countries to discuss ways for the promotion of Punjabi language and culture.

Islam Shah told me that the three-day conference was held in the Lloyd Park Theatre in East London and was inaugurated jointly by the Mayor of Walthamostow and Fakhar Zaman. The purpose of the conference was to promote the Punjabi language which had been declared the 10th language of the world by UNESCO. It was also highlighted during the conference that the Punjab had been the land of sufis and gurus. All of them promoted a culture of tolerance, humanism, self-abnegation, resistance and piety.

The London Declaration adopted at the 5th Punjabi Conference, the first-ever held in Britain has given a very interesting explanation of the word ‘Punjabiat.’ It categorically states that it means resistance against fascism, dictatorship, terrorism, religious bigotry, extremism and intolerance. Good luck to those who hold this view.

THE second Monday of every month is when the literary organization meets at the residence of its chairperson, Shahnaz Muzzammil, which happens to be in Model Town. But woe to the electricity-wallahs who kept everyone sweating that evening. I was particularly sorry for the young girl who comes all the way from Bhati Gate to recite her poetry. I heard her name, Shama Iqbal, for the first time that day and straightaway expressed my appreciation for her:

Maut ko to zindagi ka hi libada heh yeh fun

Loag zinda hotay hein leikin yahan marnay ke baad

The US-based poet, Sardar Soz, was also there that evening. He came up with:

Ham muhabbat ka bhi meenar bana sektay thay Ham ko nafrat ki na deevar girani aaey

Karamat Bukhari was also there and it seemed that Mashkur Husain Yad is becoming a regular at these meetings.

The evening ended well but I came away with a lump in my throat. The person responsible was Shahnaz Muzzammil who spoke these lines:

Harasan aur tanha phir rahi hoon

Jo hona tha voh aakhir ho gaya heh. — Ashfaque Naqvi