LAHORE: Participants in a seminar on Thursday were of the view that the public sector institutions should be given autonomy to operate independently to devise schemes and policies for welfare of the public.

The seminar on ‘understanding social implications of monetary policy in Pakistan’ was held at the Government College University (GCU) on Thursday.

Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Asghar Zaidi chaired the seminar, which was addressed by Dr Sajid Amin Javed, the research fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad.

Dr Amin said the monetary policy should be treated as the public policy and there should not be any political intervention in the business of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

“A public sector institution should be autonomous to operate independently through its schemes and policies targeting the welfare of the public.”

Mr Amin shared insightful findings about the social implications of the monetary policy of the SBP with the audience comprising senior faculty and students of the GCU. He highlighted the fact that it’s due to the lack of awareness and financial literacy among the people that they could not foresee the expectations of the SBP and therefore the pressure of inflation was increasing day by day. He suggested to the SBP to follow a specific indicator for reporting the inflation rate and stressed accountability of the designated autonomy.

Prof Zaidi said linkages between policy institutes and academic institutions should be encouraged for making students more practical, insightful and research-oriented. He also stressed changing the approach of conservative teaching in universities towards a more dynamic and participatory one.

Prof Zaidi said human beings were naturally different from each other but standardisation culture in the education system was not based on diversity but conformity.

He appreciated the guest speaker for sharing his findings using a very interactive approach and lauded Economics Department Chairperson Prof Dr Babar Aziz for taking initiatives of for the young researchers.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2021