THE writ of the present government, according to the official sources, was being challenged in tribal areas of Balochistan, particularly Kohlu and Dera Bugti, and the military action has been undertaken to restore it. On the other hand, writs of the successive governments have been challenged for the last five decades in the province.
The government claims that it is laying the economic foundation of the province by launching mega-development projects, but has the government prepared any road-map for the social development in a region whose social indicators are the most challenging in South Asia?
Balochistan has a predominantly poor rural population, thinly distributed over a vast and a difficult terrain. Its remote rural areas still present the picture of medieval ages. For instance, in Naseerabad and Jhal Magsi districts, ‘donkey-fans’ are still used during hot summer nights and the people cover long distances on camels.
Many swampy places in the rural areas serve as breeding grounds for mosquitoes and malaria is common. The water-born diseases like typhoid are common due to lack of access to clean drinking water.
According to an estimate, tuberculosis incidence is 177 per 100,000 population. The annual parasite incidence of 6.56 for malaria is almost 30 times the parasite incidence for the whole country.
According to one estimate, net primary enrolment rates are very low- 28 per cent for boys and 20 per cent for girls. Gender disparity in school education is still a long way from the Medium Development Goals(DMGs). There is a need to make substantial investments to achieve the MDGs related to child health. It is estimated that only 26 per cent of pregnant women receive prenatal care, and only 21 per cent are delivered by skilled birth attendants.
According to another estimate, around 158 out of every 1,000 children born do not reach their fifth birthday. About four out of every 10 children are underweight. Only 26 per cent of pregnant women (53 per cent urban and 21 per cent rural) avail themselves of prenatal care services from trained birth attendants. The use of post-natal care by women in the first 40 days after delivery was also found to be as low as 20 per cent with urban-rural variation of 44 and 15 per cent, respectively). Only 14 per cent of married women use contraceptives.
Balochistan has no wastewater treatment facilities. In urban areas, household sewage is discharged into natural drains (nullahs) and ultimately into low-lying areas of the town. Apart from Quetta, Gwadar, and Kila Abdullah towns, solid waste collection, transportation, and disposal coverage is less than three per cent.
Waste material is burned, dumped in open spaces, used for uncontrolled landfill and land reclamation, or thrown into drains and watercourses. The access to drinking water and sanitation need significant investments to improve access and infrastructure.
The rural infant mortality rate (IMR) in Pakistan is 88 as compared to an urban IMR of 65. Balochistan has the highest under-five MR among all the provinces. The rate of fall in under-five mortality has lagged behind giving rise to a widening gap between other provinces and Balochistan. There is worsening rich and poor gap in primary enrolment. One example of gender -gap is the fact that the Balochistan female population has a literacy rate of nine per cent.
The province has limited room to increase its social sector expenditures, partly because of its high debt-service burden. The social sector expenditures mostly go to salaries while non-salary expenditures are well below the global norms.
Of the budgeted revenue receipts for FY2005, close to 95 per cent had to come from federal government transfers. The provincial tax base is narrow and limited. The provincial government has a large stock of high-interest debt, and in FY2004, Rs2.6 billion, or 10.7 per cent of its total current expenditure, went to debt-servicing.
Under the Balochistan Local Government Ordinance(BLGO) 2001, the district governments are primarily responsible for education, health, water supply and sanitation. However, only salary-related budgets have been devolved to the local governments; the province has retained most of the non-salary and development expenditures for the devolved social services. Understandably, the development effectiveness of the local governments has been reduced.
The Provincial government recently conducted the multiple cluster indicator survey (MICS), which is the biggest survey in terms of its volume and diversity, ever conducted in the province. A total of 10,680 households have been covered. The survey assumes each district as a separate an independent survey unit while Quetta district has been taken as two independent towns. Hence the MICS is a set of 27 independent survey units.
A two-stage stratified random sampling technique has been used. While 730 primary sample units (PSUs) were selected from the province (71 per cent rural/ 29 per cent urban), the 12 households from each urban and 16 from each rural PSU were selected as a secondary-sampling units for the survey.
The main strength of MICS is to provide effective results that simultaneously gauge a wide range of indicators for social development; I) economic status; 2) health and nutrition profile; 3) education level; 4) water availability and hygiene/sanitation practices.
The factors which have actually limited the scope for financing the social sector development and thus achieving the real development goals associated with MICS are the high debt-service burden, constrained fiscal space, social sector indicators, constraints in social service provision, and low current investments. These factors justify need for higher investments and more efficiency in the social sector.
