| July 5, 2005 | Tuesday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 27, 1426 |
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Minimum wages
Property dealers
‘Transforming a dangerous region’
Strange verdict
Islamabad airport
Reviving Circular Railway
Dehydration cases
Buffalo on the beach
Citizen’s life
Builders’ mafia
Increase in land price
Homeopaths and tabibs
PCST benefits
ACCORDING to a news report (Dawn, June 29), a Brazilian company is planning to invest in Pakistan’s oil and gas sector. The company was specifically invited by the president during his visit to Brazil in November last year. The company plans to introduce new technologies of gasohol and particularly that of biodiesel in Pakistan.
Pakistan is likely to become an energy-deficient country at the beginning of the next decade. The country’s remaining recoverable reserves of crude oil are estimated at 310 million barrels, which shows an insufficiency keeping in view the growing annual demand for petroleum products. Similarly, the country has 26.8 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves. According to the Economic Survey 2004-05, consumption of gas increased for the first time to 1,003,198 million cubic feet (mmcf) during July-March 2004-05, as compared to 882,684 mmcf during that same period last year, showing an increase of 13.6 per cent. Pakistan has now become the leading country in Asia and the largest user of CNG in the world after Argentina and Brazil.
There is the greatest motivation today for increased interest in biomass-based fuels in many countries owning to environmental concerns, especially with urban air pollution and global warming. Gasohol is a gasoline blend in which ethanol is mixed as an oxygenate and can be used in gasoline engines. Crucially, volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide (CO) are reduced by using such type of fuels. A gasohol-fuelled automobile costs no more than a comparable gasoline vehicle. On the other hand, biodiesel is produced by reacting vegetable or animal fats with methanol or ethanol to produce a lower viscosity fuel similar in physical characteristics to diesel and which can be used neat or blended with petroleum diesel in diesel engine. Biodiesel is a zero-sulphur diesel fuel. In general, biodiesel softens and degrades certain types of elastomers and natural rubber compounds over time. Moreover, it has the potential to reduce diesel CO emissions, smoke opacity and hydrocarbon emissions.
The Brazilian ‘prooacool’ programme to promote the use of fuel ethanol in motor vehicles has attracted worldwide attention as a successful alternative fuel programme. Despite the availability of a large and inexpensive biomass resource, however, this technology, if executed, will depend on massive Pakistan government subsidies for its viability.
RASHID ASHRAF
Karachi
THE minimum wage of a government employee is said to be Rs3,000. I don’t know on which ground this has been worked out but an unbiased analysis may reveal that the amount is even not enough to keep body and soul together. Here is a brief sketch of monthly expenses to be incurred on the essential necessities of an average family consisting of four members — husband and wife and two children: Employee’s expenses to attend to his duty (transportation and meal) Rs800; utility expenses Rs600; rations Rs2,000; groceries Rs900; clothing Rs500; medicine Rs400; contingencies Rs300; education Rs300; house rent (in case one doesn’t own a house) Rs1,000. The total comes to Rs6,600.
Honestly speaking, a family of four cannot live within less. As a consequence, the number of families living below the poverty line has rapidly increased during the last four years.
Owing to financial constraints many youths have been denied education and the situation is getting worse with the high rate of school dropouts. The uneducated generation will not only undermine the efforts being made by the government for alleviation of poverty and unemployment but further aggravate the situation. Moreover, crimes such as theft, mugging and robbery have increased in pursuit of a better life. Instances of suicides and even slaughtering of children by parents have also been taking place, which is a matter of great concern.
The government should immediately review the situation and rationalize the minimum salary by undertaking realistic studies of the prices of essential commodities and services so that the miseries and sufferings of the poor can be minimized.
MOHAMMAD RAFIQ
Karachi
THE attention of the relevant authorities is drawn towards the corruption among some of the property dealers in connivance with some lower Karachi Development Authority (KDA) staff.
I had purchased a plot of 240 sq yds in Mehran Town, Block 6H, Korangi Township Scheme n Karachi under my wife’s name back in the early 1980s. There was no development in the area for many years.
Recently, I came to know that the plots had been demarcated. I visited my plot and was shocked to see that a house had already been constructed on my plot and the occupants told me that they had purchased the plot through some property agent in 2003. When I showed them my ownership documents they also showed me theirs, which contained a sale deed signed by my wife but without her photograph on it, a copy of my wife’s ID card, and a copy of the KDA transfer letter issued in the name of my wife. The property dealer could not have done it without the help of someone working in the department concerned of KDA.
Some of the plots my friends and relatives had purchased in the same scheme have also been illegally occupied with a compound wall around the plots and their occupants claiming that they are the real owners.
I have brought the matter to the knowledge of the KDA but so far there has been no reply. I don’t know who else to contact. M. MAJIDUDDIN
Karachi
“A FREE Iraq is an important part of transforming a dangerous region of the world”, so says a US spokesman (Dawn, June 15). The US statement implies that the Bush administration has enlarged its agenda by shifting from the Arab world to the region as a whole (to include Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan) and from democracy to transformation, which can include everything in one’s life. This makes it a dangerous proposition. The fact of the matter is that the world does not accept a political vacuum in any country or region, and we are not short of it.
The West has been playing havoc with the Arab world since the establishment of the state of Israel. For this, it pays extraordinary attention to and takes a greater interest in the region as compared to other regions of the world, our ‘transformations’ merely being another extension of superpower objectives in the name of democracy and liberalism.
Novelist John le Carre writes in his book Absolute Trends: “Anyone can see what happened in Iraq. It was nothing more than a war of colonial conquest fought for oil, dressed up as crusade for western life and liberty. And its authors were a clique of war-hungry Judeo-Christian geo-political fantasists who hijacked the media and exploited America’s post 9/11 psychopathy”.
Huck Gutman, professor of English at the University of Vermont, writes: “The truth, for those who rule Washington in these days, is an outdated concept” (Dawn, Aug 30, 2003).
Z.A. KAZMI
Karachi
ONE Ali Mohammad allegedly raped his own daughter-in-law, Imrana, in Charthawal town of Muzaffarnagar district on June 4 after which he was arrested. What is surprising is the ‘fatwa’ in this case decreed by Darul Uloom, Deoband, and supported by the All- India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) — that after the rape of Imrana by her father-in-law she has become the mother of her husband and as such cannot live with him.
Reportedly, both Imrana and her husband have been threatened by some maulanas to abide by the verdict or else face the consequences. This verdict has been denounced by the All-India Shia Personal Law Board (AISPLB) and the All-India Women Muslim Personal Law Board (AIWMPLB) as not being in accordance with the Shariat.
One should ponder as to what is the fault of Imrana, who was apparently helpless. In such matters the orthodox always penalize the woman even when she is not at fault. Where should such a ‘divorced’ and discarded woman go for the rest of her life? Will she be accepted at her parents’ place? Maybe by the father and mother, but not by the brothers and sisters, especially when they are married. How long will the father and mother live and support her? What after they are no more? Do the ulema think of such hard facts of life for a divorced woman before pronouncing their verdict?
COL (retd) RIAZ JAFRI
Rawalpindi
I RECENTLY travelled from Dubai to Islamabad and was ashamed to see total chaos at the immigration counters. While there were eight counters for the immigration staff, only four were manned to cater to two international flights.
The FIA staff was seen standing in corners chatting and oblivious to the problems of the passengers.
The four personnel manning the immigration counters were taking ages to process a passport as they seemed totally inept at handling computers. At the same time, everybody who was anybody was being met by the staff of customs, police, army or immigration and whisked away without any formalities. Air-conditioning in the arrivals hall was
ineffective and this made the place very unpleasant with over 300 people crammed into a small area. No arrangements were made for the sick or the old to sit down till their turn came in for the immigration process.
It was embarrassing for me to hear foreigners talking about the “utter mayhem and lack of discipline in this nation”.
SAQIB ANWAR
Dubai, UAE
THIS is with reference to Ms Zubeida Mustafa’s article ‘Reviving circular railway (June 22). The writer has not made it clear as to what should get priority, reviving the KCR or looking after the lot of land grabbers.
It is wrong to hold the railways responsible for the inability of the KCR to be viable for its closing down. Urban traffic is not the baby of the national railways system. It is the responsibility of the city or the provincial government, though light rail is the mode used for clearing the large traffic in the shortest time in a given hour.
A basic duty of a government is to provide communication facilities to its people. Transport is an economic activity. Its efficiency, efficacy and cost of use has a direct bearing on the health of the economy.
No rail system carrying passengers is able to meet its cost of service. The benefits are economic and not financial. A circular/suburban railway system needs financial and administrative assistance from the government for reducing its costs and improving earnings. Also, the provision/maintenance cost of rail track and the infrastructure of mass transit will have to be borne by the provincial government.
Reduction in the travel cost, time and energy consumption are some of the benefits of using the railway system for mass transit. An essential feature is quick acceleration and effective braking to permit successive services with minimum headway, so that the maximum number of trains can be operated in rush hours on all heavy routes.
A railway mass transit system can have a sprawling network but it cannot reach everywhere. There has to be feeder and complementary road transport to bring home the benefits of an integrated system to the largest segment of residents. It requires an autonomous body on the pattern of the London Transport Authority to coordinate the service of the two modes to complement each other instead of competing. This authority will be the owner of railway operation and infrastructure networks and road transport operations.
The railway mass transit system has to be light rail, able to move faster through the main arteries of the city road network. It has to be a part of city traffic and even obey traffic signals.
If one’s intentions, attitudes and approach are correct, there is no reason for this project not maturing under an autonomous authority
HADI IQBAL HUSSAIN
Ex-member (traffic),
Railway Board Lahore
THE BA, MA, BSc, MSc, BBA, MBA, BCom and MCom semester exams are currently going on at the Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur, but one feels dismayed at the conditions under which the exams are being held. There is no drinking water available for students in temperatures ranging from 45 to 50 degree Celsius, causing dehydration.
Almost daily scores of cases of dehydration are happening and being reported to the university authorities but all fall on deaf ears. Ironically, neither first aid nor an ambulance service is available to take students to the hospital in case of an emergency though there is one ambulance meant for students which is in the personal use of university officers. Even hostels do not have an ambulance, and in case of an emergency students are rushed to hospital either in rickshaws or private cars. Students drink unhygienic and hard water, causing them Hepatitis–B, gastro-enteritis and kidney diseases.
The university administration appears to be callous. Arrangement for providing cold and drinkable water for students during examination should be made as the university is getting a budget of around Rs280 million in the name of these students.
DR KHALID SOOMRO
Khairpur
CLIFTON beach is a place where the entertainment-starved people of Karachi go to catch the fresh and cool sea breeze and enjoy themselves. Can you beat it — buffaloes have now come to reside there and pollute the beach. Builders and encroachers are already at it. The beach cannot be turned into a cattle colony.
One can also see half a dozen camels / horses residing permanently on the beach, near their camp. The stench is overpowering. Camel/horse minders should be allowed to bring their animals from 4pm to 11pm. They should not be allowed to pitch a tent and live there.
I will request the Sindh government and environmentalists to look into the matter and save Clifton beach from further mutilation.
LT-COL (retd) SAFIR
A. SIDDIQUI Karachi
THIS is with reference to the letter by Mr Mohsin Malik (July 1). It is true that the poor performance of our institutions has made life miserable for the common man.
Recently, I was driving through a busy street in the centre of Karachi, and I was stopped by a policeman on the grounds that I broke a traffic signal. I knew I hadn’t but I still had to pay Rs100 as “chai pani” for a crime I did not commit. Everybody knows that our police actually participate in street crime instead of helping reduce it.
Taking into account the problems highlighted, the situation of our law-enforcement agencies, and the recent increase in oil prices, the question that we ordinary citizens have to face is simple: Isn’t Pakistan becoming a difficult place to live in?
SALMAN ALI BANANI
Karachi
RESIDENTIAL bungalows built on 1,000 square yards in Latifabad are being bought by the builders’ mafia and converted into multi-storied buildings in violation of the building laws. Permission is being granted frequently for change of land use without obtaining objections from the general public.
Bifurcation of category ‘A’ residential plots into smaller units and conversion of residential and amenity plots into commercial ones are taking place in Unit Nos. 2, 6, 7, 8 and 12. We appeal to the authorities to stop this.
RESIDENTS
Latifabad, Hyderabad
RECENTLY the Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation increased the prices of plots allotted to government officials in various grades. It should be noted that those allotted plots in the scheme have already or are nearing retirement. At this age while liabilities on the individual tend to increase in the form of children’s education, children’s marriages, etc., one’s income is greatly reduced. In such a scenario it is difficult for an honest retired government official to meet the additional amount demanded by the foundation which is more than 100 per cent of the original price.
It is therefore suggested that if the proposed hike is inevitable, then instead of increasing the price the number of instalments should be increased from five to 10 over a period of 54 months from the original 27 months while the amount due per instalment remains the same, especially for those who have already retired from service.
The president, the prime minister and the minister of housing and welfare are requested to look into the matter.
IQTADAR A. SHAH
Rawalpindi
I WAS surprised to read the report on the plans of the NWFP to start homoeopathic and ‘tib’ dispensaries (Dawn, June 28). The world is advancing every day and now even MBBS doctors have to appear for an examination before they are allowed to join the health services of America, the UK, Canada, etc.
Middle Eastern countries also conduct examinations before allowing MBBS graduates to join their health services. We should realize that health is a very important subject, and nobody should be allowed to treat or manage a medical problem if he is not qualified to do so.
I am not against homoeopaths or ‘tabibs’, but my interest is with patients. If the government wants to support homoeopaths or ‘tabibs’, then it should ask them to first get an MBBS degree, with specialization in any one subject, to entitle them to practise ‘tib’ or homoeopathy.
To play with the health of the people is criminal, and I will request the president and the prime minister to stop this plan.
DR HASEEB ALAM
Karachi
I RETIRED from the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology as a driver in BPS-11. The PCST is functioning under the ministry of science and technology and as per notification No. F.1(8)/97-PCST dated Aug 26, 2000, its terms and conditions of service shall be governed under the Civil Servants Act, 1973. But its retired employees are deprived of medical facility and pension benefits.
I appeal to the relevant authorities to take notice of the suffering of PCST the retirees.
MOHAMMAD AFZAL
Kahuta, Rawalpindi
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