Uneven development

Pakistan's major cities are trapped in a mire of problems, as any day's newspaper can testify. The basic infrastructure is in a dilapidated condition, water and power shortages are rampant, public transport is unreliable and unsafe, and amenities like parks and playgrounds have been gobbled up by the land mafia. If this is the case in the main cities, one can well imagine the state of affairs in district towns and tehsil headquarters.

The government has announced various concessions to develop agriculture in the 2004-05 budget, but leaves unaddressed the question of social decline and unemployment in the mofussil and rural areas that forces an exodus to the urban centres. The rural areas and their inhabitants have been bypassed by economic development.

In addition, domination by feudal and tribal forces has created a large rural underclass which is exploited and whose aspirations and desires (for a better economic life, education and so on) are deliberately denied by influential elements who believe that doing so would threaten their power base.

Lop-sided economic development in recent years, and the policies of successive governments which focused more on cities and on engineering growth in the urban areas, is the major cause of the growing influx into the cities. Cities like Karachi and Lahore are awash with migrant workers. Urban centres already have significant problems of their own and their capacity and resources to provide for their existing population are already at a breaking point.

Migration overburdens them to the point where the cities begin to become unlivable. Many of those who arrive in the cities come with high expectations and, in most cases, these are not realized, a fact that leads to many acute social problems. The move from the village to the city also deepens the decay and rot that has set in the rural areas.

There are no short-term solutions to stem the decline and to reverse this rural-urban migration. Perhaps, the only way it can be stopped is if the rural areas present the same opportunities for a decent life that the urban centres are supposed to, especially in terms of means of livelihood. This means increased focus on integrating the rural areas into the matrix of economic development.

The 6.4 per cent GDP growth for 2003-04 came not because of the agriculture sector but despite its poor performance. Initiatives like making micro-credit more easily available via the Khushhali Bank need to be widened in their geographical coverage. This is particularly important because there exist considerable income-generating opportunities in the country's rural non-farm sector as well, especially among women who have the potential to set up small-scale home-based enterprises to augment their family income.

The Punjab government has recently announced plans to help set up small industrial estates in the vicinity of small towns by providing soft loans to public sector corporations, and this is something that other provinces could emulate. As for improving the quality of the labour force in the rural areas, this is something that can be done over time through increased literacy levels and provision of better quality education.

However, training can and does help, and the government could involve the private sector, especially NGOs, in capacity building in rural areas. Of course, much of this will be difficult to achieve if the feudal and tribal system is permitted to continue unreformed. Land reforms have been given up and forgotten, but at least we can have a more just dispensation governing the ownership and use of land - and at least provide a minimum of essential services to the people of the rural hinterland.

Rights of child labourers

The National Assembly was recently informed that there were no current statistics to ascertain the number of child labourers in the country. The last survey in this regard was carried out in 1996, when the count stood at 3.3 million (the actual figure is believed to be higher). This has made it difficult to determine how many more children under the age of 14 have been added to the labour force since then. But to be sure, knowing the problem of growing poverty, particularly in the rural areas, many more must have entered the labour market since then, even those as young as four or five.

Unfortunately, social and economic conditions in the country are such that our young ones are forced to leave the shelter of home to work to supplement a meagre family income, often toiling under hazardous and backbreaking conditions. Employed in the fields and factories, and subject to the verbal and physical abuses of their employers, they have to work for hours and in conditions that are violative of all relevant laws and conventions.

It is argued that if child labour is to be completely abolished, it would be difficult for the families of the young workers to survive - at least until the benefits of poverty alleviation packages and other social changes begin to trickle down to them.

In this case, although there should be no room for hazardous occupations and some age limit should be enforced, much can be done to improve conditions, by reducing the children's working hours, giving them proper meals, raising their wages and making education for them mandatory for employers.

In all this, labour rights bodies have a major role to play by keeping a constant watch on units employing children and reporting errant employers, while international trading partners can exert pressure by not importing goods produced under hazardous conditions and by children under the minimum working age.

Water woes unending

With desperation reaching fever pitch as the residents of Karachi and Hyderabad resort to violence in an expression of anger against the continuing water shortage in their cities, there are fears that full-blown riots might erupt if the civic agencies do not get their act together.

It is surprising that neither of the civic bodies responsible for water supply - Wasa in Hyderabad and KWSB in Karachi - appear to have learned from past mistakes, with the result that the suffering of consumers has become a regular feature of the summer months. While both cities face a shortfall in overall supply, there are other factors that have worsened the situation.

These include faulty distribution lines and equipment, frequent power breakdowns that render pumping stations ineffective for hours on end, widespread water theft, silted channels and operational inefficiency. Moreover, the perpetual shortage of funds that seems to afflict most municipal bodies has also left its mark on the KWSB and Wasa. The two have found themselves without the needed funds to carry out essential repair and replacement work.

It is quite obvious that there is no easy solution to this state of affairs. However, a start could be made by seriously trying to curb water theft, repair defective lines and equipment and acting in conjunction with other civic bodies, especially the electricity agencies in the two cities. In addition, money must be generated to fill the empty coffers.

Merely getting tough with defaulters and disconnecting their water supply is not going to work. It is necessary to institute a mechanism for revenue collection, because a large chunk of even those who have legal connections do not receive their water bills for months at a stretch. Water riots may become a regular urban feature if no action is taken now.