QUETTA: The rising cost of living is playing havoc with people’s lives in Balochistan. The lives of the salaried and low-paid workers have become miserable as they have no means to increase their incomes in a province where little activity takes place in the form of trade, commerce or industry. The government has also failed to create employment opportunities for the ever-increasing army of jobless young people graduating from professional colleges and institutions.
On the contrary, the provincial and district governments are unable to pay the salary bills on a regular basis since the province is facing serious financial crisis. Virtually, the revenue receipts of the province have been stagnant for the last three years and its development plan has been slashed by half for non-avail ability of funds from the federal government.
To make matters worse, the salaried and low-income groups have no opportunity to work in part-time jobs as the poor economy of the province does not offer such options.
A tin-trunk maker Ghulam Dastagir, who is a graduate and recently got married, was found desperately trying to get a job in the provincial government department. He was unsuccessful because he could not satisfy those in a position to appoint him. “I have no money to buy the post at market rate,” he told Dawn.
“I am a clerk in a government department and my salary is only Rs7,000, which is not enough even to meet the food expenses of my seven-member family,” said Abdul Nabi. He added that he was looking for a part-time job to meet his expenses but so far he could not get any.
Following the devolution of powers to the district or local level, the provincial government has absolved itself of the responsibility of controlling prices and the task has been assigned to the district governments, which, unfortunately, are non-functional and ineffective.
Before the introduction of the new system, the deputy commissioners used to depute an army of magistrates for checking prices.
The reason that goods were in short supply, was not accepted as they requested their colleagues in neighbouring districts to send supplies of essential commodities and thus the prices were brought down.
But after the devolution of powers, there has been a complete anarchy and members of the price control committees have now been found suggesting to shopkeepers and dealers to increase prices of certain commodities, thus leaving citizens at the mercy of profiteers and hoarders.
“The price control committees are ineffective and serve the interests of the traders and business community,” Abdullah Jan Baloch told Dawn. He also alleged that a majority of councillors was also responsible for increasing the rates of various commodities.
“The writ of the government is not visible anywhere since no trader is ready to sell at the official rate,” said Saeed Ahmed, a banker.
In the case of wheat, provincial officials and their political bosses were so desperate that they disposed of the mandatory food security stocks after 90 days. Such stocks were in the past not touched under any circumstances.
But now, the same stock was also smuggled out to Afghanistan under official and political supervision pushing the flour prices to the sky high. The Balochistan government has earned notoriety for patronizing corrupt officials. For the past many decades, the rate of pilferage of government funds has been 40-80 per cent at secretariat and field levels.
The rampant increase in prices of essential commodities will further increase the rate of corruption in the province.
