AFTER trying with large visions in small areas, we are opting for a grand Vision 2030. In fact, the National Economic Council approved the vision in principle in May last year which is to be taken up more seriously and in detail now. It is a comprehensive vision and promises almost everything to every group to make the state truly modern on a global scale.

Vision 2030 provides the norms for a modern political system and seeks rapid and sustained economic growth with social justice. It promises thorough reform of the civil services and a sound regulatory system to ensure equity, a wholesome judicial system for all that ensures what is promised is delivered to the people without fail. Neither the long-term vision is new; nor its varied commitment nor is what the vision promises disputable.

Shortly after the success of the second five year plan in the 1960`s the Planning Commission came up with Planning Commission came up with a 20-year plan, with almost the same objectives. That did not make any headway.. Now comes the Vision 2030 spanning twenty five years-the longest vision inclusive of the current year.

The new vision talks of every basic problem of the country except population planning or it does not give the problem due importance as the population growth has come down from 3.1 per cent annually.

Population planning should receive greater and sustained attention to reduce the pressure on not only the state, but also the families particularly the mothers. More so, if we want the women to play a greater role in the economy, instead of having a marginal organised participation.

The difference between the vision now and the past is that now the industrial and infrastructure sectors are greatly privatised and the state cannot make them conform to any expansionary target. Instead the market will provide the incentives for expansion and penalise the defaulters financially.

Hence the task of regulating effectively the vastly expanded private sector which controls the key services should be done by the regulatory bodies without which monopolies and cartels will thrive and create the kind of problems which the sugar sector has with sugar touching Rs50 a kilo.

Justice for all and in time is very essential as without that a rich group of people in collusion with the corrupt executives can inflict great pain on the poor The common man needs fair wages instead of inflation robbing them of much of their earnings and the banks denying them a fair return on their small savings. Unless the three things go together, the demands of equity cannot be met and the common man cannot get out of his financial trap, while the rich groups have too many avenues to make quick money. Hence the vision 2030 begins with a call to improve savings rate and poor return on savings and the low investments that follow and result in slower growth in production in a large populated country.

Vision 2030 will focus on poverty alleviation, promotion of education and public health and providing essential services to the people and ensureer justice. Surely, with one-third of the people living below the poverty line of a dollar a day, it should not take 25 years to banish poverty in our midst. It should be and can be done much quicker if inflation is firmly controlled and better returns ensured on small savings, certainly above the inflation rate.

Meanwhile, we have the UN millennium goals to half the poverty in the world by 2015, reduce illiteracy and promote women’s education. Those goals must be achieved in Pakistan as well as in other developing countries and we should then move ahead from the UN goals to a distant 2030. The approach paper of the vision emphasizes four levels — natures of the state, economy, society and global imperatives. And it gives a great deal of importance to reforming the civil services “without which the vision cannot be implemented, no matter how well that is formulated.

It gives equal importance to the reform of the judicial system, without which justice cannot be ensured for all. The state, says the vision, should be able to provide justice, security, health, sanitation, drinking water and other social services. Providing clean drinking water can cut the stomach diseases by at least half. Now that the privatiisation has become extensive, will the so-called public-private partnership in many areas become a reality and the private sector play fair in such partnerships?

The allocation of funds for the vision’s key sectors is not enough. Now the government has been stressing that four per cent of the GDP will be spent on education--- a distinct improvement from 2.5 per cent. What is important is not only that the promised money should be spent but spent properly and in good time. And the educational funds allocated to the centre, provinces and local governments should be audited properly. In fact, the vision 2030 should have given a great deal of importance to the educational and social welfare allocations.

The funds earmarked for the public sector development programme for the current year has not been spent as targeted due to delay in the release of funds and the delay in the staff recruitments in the Punjab and Sindh.

The report for the first half of the year shows that only 39.6 per cent of the allocated amount has been spent despite assurances that the implementation will not lag behind the targets. Of course, we don’t need the funds for education to be spent so fast that we are left with too many ghost schools, ghost teachers, ghost hospitals and ghost doctors.

A pre-expenditure audit to make sure the money goes where it is intended can be more helpful. But the pre-audit has never been popular with our officials more so when the funds are released so late. Of course, the role of the police is very important in a modern society. They should become the guardians and zealous enforcers of the law instead of those who violate it merrily and make the people fear the police more than the criminals and so avoid reporting crimes to the police.

It is said of the rape of women in Pakistan, that the same happens in the West, the US in particular. But unlike in Pakistan that is not gang rape and not normally committed by the police and at police stations. When the guardians of law become the lawbreakers in the manner our police often becomes, the people particularly the women suffer excessively.

So the reform of the judiciary cannot be of great help to the people without the reform of the police to help the judiciary. The two systems have to go hand in hand and without one helping the other, it will not work..

The police have to detain and furnish the culprits in the courts and also produce the right witnesses instead of hired ones. Without the police taking this first essential step, even the best of courts cannot render justice to the wrong and punish the guilty.

The quality of administration in a country is judged by what happens to a letter from an ordinary citizen to the relevant officials. Can it achieve anything without a citizen pursuing his plea from office to office? When he has to do that, corruption begins and thrives and once the evil practice begins it gets to be endemic.

The vision stresses the need to conform to international standards as we get integrated more and more to the global economy and more people go abroad and work and earn home remittances which we need. The vision calls for 15--20 panels of five or six specialists to discuss every aspect of the national problem and suggest effective remedies.

The vision says nothing very new. Far more important is achieving what has been set forth as a goal in the past as well as now. Concrete results are what matter; otherwise the suggestions for improving our socio -economic order can be plenty.