April 23, 2006	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 24, 1427

In Karachi, there are half a dozen industrial estates housing over 12,000 units of varying sizes and categories. But that is Karachi where employment opportunities creep up, and people are less poor. That, however, is in sharp contrast to the interior of Sindh.

Most people in the rural areas of Sindh live below subsistence level. They do not have potable water. Children are devoid of education and masses wear tattered clothes and no shoes. The historic city of Thatta, as near as 60 miles from Karachi, presents a picture of want and poverty.

The question is: Who must take the blame for this urban, rural divide: economic planners and politicians or the feudal culture, where poor must remain poor for the survival of the landowners?

As for industrial units in the interior of Sindh, there are hardly any worth mentioning: neither the large nor medium scale. Barring sugar mills that are primarily agro-based, no other industry exists in the far flung areas that could provide jobs to the rural populace. There are ginning factories, but those are in operation only during the cotton crop season.

Consequently, most of the interior does not have basic necessities of life what to talk about modernisation. It is a sad commentary on the people of rural Sindh that they lack initiatives, but should that deprive them of the right to live?

The largest employer in rural Sindh is the agriculture sector which totally depends on depleting irrigation water resources. Therefore, in the near future this sector may still offer lower job opportunities.

However, industry people are of a strong view that even where there are job opportunities, those are not offered to the local people. Citing an example, a sugar mill owner told Dawn that all petty jobs in loading and unloading of sugarcane and truck driving were readily taken up by the NWFP’s Pathans. He said further that the biggest example of reluctance to employ Sindhis is Pak-Iran Textile, which was set up near Sindh-Balochistan border but had to be closed down due ‘non-availability’ of labour.

Even the textile industry, which is also an agro-based industry and is mostly located in Karachi, seeks its labour force from Punjab or the NWFP. In the Site industrial area alone around 550 units are operating and they contribute around 25 per cent to exports of textiles and clothing. How much of those jobs go to the rural Sindhis?

A leading textile tycoon suggested that training and vocational institutes should be opened up in the interior of Sindh for developing skills. This may encourage people to join the biggest industrial sector of the country. The other option left for economic planners is to motivate industrialists to set up industry in the rural areas. But it had been witnessed in the past that feudals offered resistance to such development in order to keep their firm hold over their ‘subjects’.

In Karachi, six industrials estates are housing all categories of industries. In the Korangi industrial area, there are two major oil refineries, multinational pharmaceutical companies, basic chemicals, textiles, garments, electronics and engineering industries, food and beverage and ceramic factories. In other estates like F.B. industrial area, there are around 2,000 small and medium or export oriented units. These estates provide job opportunities to all communities, including the people belonging to the interior of Sindh, but much of the workforce are urban and the people belonging to other provinces.

Similarly, the North Karachi industrial area is also housing around 2,000 SMEs that are primarily engaged in the production of export-oriented goods and are mostly indirect exporters. They too give jobs to all who approach them but even there most of the workforce is either of locals or belong to other provinces.

Therefore, economic planners and politicians should join hand in finding a way out where prosperity could travel to the rural of Sindh, and this can only be done by creating job opportunities closest to their dwellings. — PIR