| August 28, 2003 | Thursday | Jumadi-us-Sani 29, 142 |
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Anti-learning culture
Rescuing Karachi
THE Asian Development Bank has expressed serious concern about the poor quality of public sector development spending in Pakistan. At the release of its economic report for Pakistan on Tuesday, the country representative of the bank commented that spending under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) and the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) was very low in the first three quarters of fiscal 2002-03. Large-scale releases in the fourth quarter, ostensibly to make up for the previous delays, compromised the quality of delivery and resulted in leakages, said the ADB chief. The bank maintains that in each of the preceding four years development outlays have fallen short of the budget allocations by wide margins.
Donors to Pakistan have expressed their dissatisfaction with the pace of implementation of projects time and again. This is cause for worry as it brings out the weakness in the monitoring and implementation system in place. In this regard, one positive development has been the setting up of a revolving fund earlier this year, which would help expedite the pace of implementation. The government has also decided to empower the planning commission to conduct physical inspections of various projects. Based on these inspections, the
commission can take a decision on whether to continue funding a particular project or divert the money elsewhere.
For fiscal 2003-04, the National Economic Council has approved a PSDP of Rs 160 billion, 31 per cent higher than the revised estimates for the preceding year. While the allocation looks ambitious, the challenge for the government is now to prioritize its expenditure and sequence the spending so as to make funds available for the right projects at the right time and absorb the disbursed funds within the given timetable. This is a bigger challenge than it seems. It is understood that in the nine months of fiscal 2002-03, only 49 per cent of funds allocated to federally funded projects were utilized. Doubts are being expressed about meeting the targets set for this year. Part of the problem is the pace of release of funds, which is painfully slow. There is also the high rate of leakage of funds, estimated to be as high as 30 per cent last year. The ADB’s assessment does not quite square with the claims made by the government about its performance. The finance minister has said he will now review the pace of work on projects, but the ADB chief’s statement indicates that a lot more has to be done.
ACCORDING to a news report, the plot for a city library in Karachi has been lying unutilized for more than a decade. Another report speaks of the poor state of a library set up by the erstwhile KMC. Periodically we learn of libraries which are in danger of being liquidated by sheer official neglect. While this reflects our society’s anti-learning culture, it also has grave implications for the state of education and economic development of the country. It hardly needs to be pointed out that libraries are cradles of knowledge and have to be preserved and expanded if one cares for the intellectual growth of the community.
It is a pity that the government at different levels and official agencies do not feel at all concerned about this issue. This shows in many ways. The library network is not expanding as it should have with the growth of population and the supposed rise in literacy. The existing public institutions are slipping into decay. The budgetary allocations for libraries have been shrinking.With the rot setting in so rapidly, it is not surprising that there is no public interest in books and libraries which, in turn, has adversely affected the publishing industry.
It is still not too late to retrieve the situation, especially because there are several organizations and quite a few individuals who are genuinely worried about the state of our libraries. They understand the nature of the problem and are motivated enough to go about trying to tackle it. The newly formed Library Support Group in Karachi, which has started collecting books for schools in low-income areas, is one example. It is important that these efforts, which are quite dispersed and sporadic and therefore make little impact on the national scene, should be brought under one umbrella. A beginning could be made by introducing a library law in every province to set up an authority to administer the library system and generate funds by making it compulsory for every public body concerned with reading and writing to earmark at least two per cent of its budget for libraries. The education department could be advised to make it compulsory for every educational institution to set up a library and make books available to its students. Local bodies should also be required to address this issue.
While all these measures are important to set up an infrastructure comprising a network of libraries — small mohalla libraries and box libraries would serve a useful purpose — it is also essential to start a campaign to generate public interest. This can be done by using the existing libraries as community centres to promote a book culture. Discussions could be held on books and related issues, well-known authors invited to literary meetings and mushairas arranged. A beginning has to be made somewhere, and once a momentum is generated the ball will be set rolling.
THE president’s approval of a Rs 29-billion package to rebuild Karachi’s battered infrastructure needs to be welcomed. The four-year plan will seek to upgrade the city’s sewerage system, rebuild roads and bridges, augment the water supply, improve solid waste collection and establish a credible emergency response plan. Regrettably, the package fails to take note of Karachi’s urgent need for a mass transit system by ignoring this issue altogether. In an encouraging sign, however, all the dozen or so stakeholders — some under federal control and some from the private sector — have come on board and will contribute Rs 12 billion, with the federal, provincial and city governments providing the rest. According to the city Nazim, 40 per cent of Karachi’s sewerage system does not work. Hence, revamping the sewers will require a comprehensive review of their design so that when it rains the water is properly drained away.
The eventual success of the rehabilitation package will depend on how the substantial funds earmarked for it are utilized and on the quality of the public works carried out. The government will have to ensure that officials of the executing agencies do not indulge in any financial misappropriation. In addition to that, contractors will have to be carefully chosen (those who have built roads which crumbled after last month’s rains should be blacklisted) and monitored to ensure that they do not use sub-standard materials and adhere to the design specifications. The fact that the package presents a golden opportunity to bring some lasting improvement to Karachi will, hopefully, not be lost on the stakeholders involved. All urban centres in the country need drastic revamping, but the problems of Karachi, which is now a collection of several cities, are special and require a special effort to overcome.