| 14 October 2004 | Thursday | 28 Sha'aban 1425 |
Ghost schools
Easing water problems
A review of the progress on the proposed industrial town near Lahore by Chief Minister Parvaiz Elahi indicates that businessmen in the province as well as overseas Pakistanis are willing to invest if they are provided with much needed and improved infrastructure facilities.
On the basis of the response so far, officials estimate the total investment in the Sundar Industrial Estate to ultimately reach Rs30 billion to create around 600,000 jobs. But the fact remains that the desire for investment is dampened by the absence or inadequacy of social and physical infrastucture. The cost of doing business mounts if, for example, electricity shortages leave no option for industrial units but to set up their own power plants to be able to manage scheduled delivery of export goods.
This is one reason why investments are primarily confined to the strengthening of existing businesses rather than expanding into new areas of manufacturing. Hassles in doing business need to be minimized to stimulate investment.
Under the Punjab government's Vision 2020, Sundar is the first industrial estate which would be followed by a similar one at Faisalabad and another at Rahim Yar Khan.
For this purpose, the Punjab government has provided one billion rupees as a revolving fund to Punjab Industrial Estate Management Company. The company has already awarded a contract worth Rs1.1 billion to a private firm for construction of roads and drainage in the Lahore estate.
Planned to be fully functional by the end of next year, the estate will have its own power station, hospitals, a common drug laboratory for pharmaceutical firms and a labour colony in the neighbourhood.
In the meantime a new industrial policy, now under formulation, would be announced in January next year to further stimulate investment. In the first phase, 286 plots would be sold for which 251 applications, seven per cent of which from overseas Pakistanis, have been received. Expatriates have once again renewed their interest in investment as indicated by the visit by a delegation of Pakistani businessmen settled in the UK.
Going by the past practices of trading in industrial plots, industries minister Jahangir Tarin has warned that it is not a real estate business. In case of failure to set up industry in two years, the allottees would have to return the plots to the government.
The applicants are expected to start construction within the next six months and go into production in 18 months. The procedure may not be an appropriate mode to check speculative activity.
A better way would be to entertain applications which are accompanied by a feasibility report or at least by a detailed proposal on the project proposed to be set up. If managed prudently, infrastructural facilities can spur industrialization to create jobs at a time of acute unemployment.
Punjab's model industrial estate at Lahore could also be replicated in other provinces to contain poverty and unemployment. No doubt, Sindh is making some progress on this count though not as fast and not as focused.
It plans to set up 20 industrial estates starting with the first one at Ghotki and an extension of Hyderabad Industrial Estate. While the creation of new industrial estates is a welcome move, it is equally important that infrastructure facilities at the existing ones be upgraded. At stake are a sustainable economic development process and millions of jobs required to pull the marginalized ones out of the clutches of poverty.
Ghost schools
The Sindh government should take notice of a demonstration organized on Tuesday in Dadu where people were protesting against the fact that 350 primary schools in the district were not functioning because they had been illegally occupied by influential people.
The school buildings are being used as guest houses and the education department is unwilling to take any action. While no survey has been carried out so far, it is assumed that many school buildings have been illegally taken over in a similar manner throughout the province.
Further, this is not a problem restricted to Sindh alone. A few months back, the Peshawar District Council's monitoring committee detected over 20 non-functional, or "ghost", schools in the city.
Thousands of children of localities where ghost schools exist are deprived of formal education despite the fact that the government allocates funds and resources for this purpose. This is a shame considering that Pakistan's literacy rate is one of the lowest in the region and the country desperately needs more educated people.
One may recall the campaign launched by then Punjab chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, in 1998 with the help of the army. That campaign unearthed over 4,500 ghost schools in Punjab.
It is said 40 per cent of the province's teachers went to school once a month to collect their salaries. While this campaign was successful in identifying the empty schools and errant staff, little was done in terms of corrective or future preventive action.
The Punjab government did not punish those responsible for the misappropriation of resources by running schools on paper alone. This is something all provincial governments need to look into. Strict action should be taken against those found responsible at all levels.
The government needs to have illegally occupied school buildings vacated so that classes can be resumed. It should also take measures to ensure that the ghost schools do not reappear after the existing ones have been recouped and restored.
Easing water problems
There is good news for Karachi. Despite being dogged by financial constraints and the consequent slow pace of work, the K-3 project, that aims to provide an additional 100 MGD of water to the city, will be completed by the end of 2005 - a few months ahead of schedule.
Once the pipeline starts functioning, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board should be in a position to plug the gap between demand and supply of water. At the moment, the city is getting 540 MGD of water when it needs at least 640 MGD to meet the requirements of its residents. But with water scarce at the source, a faulty distribution system and illegal connections, there has been no dearth of complaints by consumers, many of whom have taken part in violent protests against the scarcity of water.
This means that the KWSB cannot afford to sit back complacently once the project has been completed. It will have to take into account that the poor maintenance of the existing distribution network and an ever-increasing population can render all efforts to increase water supply in the city ineffective.
The KWSB must devote its energies now to reducing the tremendous wastage - estimated at 30 per cent - of water and a more equitable distribution of this resource throughout the city. It must also seek to generate funds to repair and revamp the existing network.
This it can do by improving its billing system which at the moment is terribly inefficient. There are many in this city who have not been informed of their water dues for months, even years.
Regularizing illegal connections, thus making it obligatory for a large part of the population to pay their dues, would also be a good way to augment funds. New schemes like K-3 will do little to ameliorate water woes unless the existing system is made to work better.