| May 9, 2005 | Monday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 29, 1426 |
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Cleaner environment
Check on doctors’ fee
THE loss of Rs. 23 billion suffered by Wapda during the first nine months of the current year presents a very dismal picture of the power utility’s financial health. To make matters worse, the Wapda management, according to one report, has written to the federal government to provide it a subsidy of Rs. 26 billion, ostensibly to bridge the shortfall between revenue and costs. This is six billion rupees more than what the federal government has been funneling into the utility every year for the past four years and raises the question for how long our loss-making public sector organizations will continue to be a burden on the exchequer. Clearly, the induction of army personnel six years ago into Wapda management did not make any difference to the utility’s operational efficiency or its financial health. In fact, the burden on the taxpayer and bill-paying consumer has only increased with the passage of time. One argument presented by defenders of the army-led management was that, try as they did, they could not change Wapda’s bureaucratic pattern of management which was both inefficient and corrupt.
Such debate, however, is only of an academic nature. The fact is that for four years the federal government has given to Wadpa a massive Rs. 80 billion, or almost as much as one year’s annual expenditure on education. Providing a subsidy of Rs. 20 billion once or twice could be justified on the grounds that it was necessary to avert default or that the funds would be used to turn the organization around. But four years later, Wapda wants an even bigger subsidy from the government on the plea that if the subsidy is not given, there will be no option but to burden consumers with even higher power tariffs. Wapda’s case for increased assistance needs to handled by the federal government keeping in mind the fact that previous such doles have done nothing to reduce the utility’s losses and that the cost of such assistance has to be ultimately borne by the taxpayer. Wapda’s management needs to be held accountable for its failure to reduce the heavy line losses and power theft and for doing little to improve the reliability of power supply.
With the advent of summer, power breakdowns are again the norm all over the country, confirming the impression that despite the Rs. 20 billion annual subsidy, and now a request for Rs. 26 billion for the current year, Wapda has become something of a financial black hole. The federal government should realize that it cannot keep on subsidizing the power utility year after year without any improvement in its financial and operational performance. It cannot also allow the utility to raise power tariffs simply to offset its avoidable losses because that would mean that consumers are being made to pay for Wapda’s own inefficiency and mismanagement. At the very least, the federal government must ask the provincial governments and organizations under official control to pay their arrears to the utility. As of March 2005, Wapda’s arrears were an incredible Rs. 84 billion (having increased by Rs. 10 billion in the past year) and if these were repaid, the necessity to ask for a heavier subsidy or raise power tariffs would be avoided.
UNVEILING a locally manufactured new four-stroke-engine rickshaw in Lahore the other day, the Punjab government announced an eco-friendly public transport policy for the big cities. It aims at abolishing all petrol-consuming public transport in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan and Gujranwala over the next three years, and replacing the existing vehicles with those running on pollution-free compressed natural gas (CNG). To facilitate the existing rickshaw owners, the provincial government says that, starting from the next fiscal year, it will offer one billion rupees in subsidy in the form of interest-free loans from The Bank of Punjab. It also plans to induct some 4,000 CNG buses to the pool of public transport in the five big cities of the province. Next to come under the axe are rickety wagons, which compete with rickshaws in terms of the harmful emissions let out by the two modes of transport. If all goes according to plan, Punjab’s cities in the years ahead will be able to offer a much cleaner air to breathe in, and can become a model for cities in other provinces.
According to various surveys conducted last year, air pollution levels were the highest in Lahore in the whole country. A Suparco study revealed that lead and fine particulate matter found suspended in the city air ranged between 800-970ug per cubic metre; by comparison, the figure for Karachi was 340-400ug, while the international limit for the same is 260ug. Much of Lahore’s air pollution is caused by the increasing number of petrol-using motor vehicles in the city and the absence of strong wind which could blow it away. Lahore, the study concluded, was next only to Delhi (which has a similar weather-pattern) when it came to staggering air pollution levels. But the lesson learnt from the Indian capital is that use of eco-friendly fuel in public transport can significantly bring down pollution levels. Another lesson that our urban planners need to learn from Delhi is the introduction of a modern and reliable mass transit system. Adding more buses, howsoever eco-friendly they might be, will only create more congestion in the existing urban environment.
THE Sindh chief minister’s adviser on health has once again vowed to regulate the charges of private medical practitioners in the province. Pointing out that there were no checks on private hospitals, he said that the fee structure in these institutions would be kept commensurate with the kind of services being provided to the patients. One would like to know what is being done to translate promises and intentions into action, especially since the regulation of private medical institutions is one of the key aspects of the new health policy of Sindh. There has also been some talk of moving a bill on the control and regulation of private health institutions in the provincial assembly. The health authorities simply must not delay things on this score. Private medical practitioners’ charges are hitting an all-time high, and in these times of inflation, the common citizen is finding it increasingly difficult to seek advice from them.
At present, most of the province’s private medical facilities are minting money. Such is the lure of these units for medical professionals that many government doctors also opt for part-time private practice. This is unethical as patients at private facilities are given more care than those at government hospitals. In fact, patients there are often told that if they want better treatment they should report to a doctor’s private clinic — all the more reason for the health authorities to keep a check on private medical outfits. However, at the same time, the authorities would do well to take steps to improve service conditions for government doctors by raising their salaries and providing them with facilities that make their job less strenuous. A government hospital that is able to match the quality of care provided by private facilities is bound to prove more popular with the people.