Institutions rise and fall depending on who is minding the store. In theory that translates into policy, implementation and management. Add to this the conquest mentality that Gen Zia demonstrated when he destroyed all the institutions that Bhutto had built: Nafdec, Roti Plant, Awami clothes etc. Mismanagement, neglect and corruption have taken their own toll. Look at PIA, KESC and PEPCO now in their death throes. And now it seems the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) is also in the emergency ward.

Thanks to new rulers’ benevolence, the USC has become the dumping ground for the jobless near and dear ones who apparently have no clue about managing this chain of essential provisions. And probably this is not their concern either.

The highest ever food crisis raging now has become a blessing in disguise for turning the USC from a loss to profit making shop. To compensate the poor against inflation government dolled out billions of rupees to provide these essential items at subsidized rates. As a result the sales of these stores reached to an unprecedented level of Rs45 billion by end of June 2008 giving government more than Rs2.5 billion in tax revenues.

The new government has recruited more than 3,000 people in the USC while 1,500 new stores are reported to have been opened, mostly in Punjab, bringing the total number of its outlets to 5,711 across the country. Of these 3,207 were established in the Punjab alone followed by 1,126 in NWFP, 907 in Sindh, 267 in Balochistan, 108 in Azad Kashmir and 96 in Northern Areas better known as Gilgit-Baltistan. On the one hand the government is recruiting in USC while on the other hundreds are being sacked. According to a news report the USC has decided to sack about 600 daily wage employees in Balochistan.

At these stores, the number of people working on regular or contractual basis is 7,106 while 2,786 are working on daily wages. But this unprecedented addition to staff will increase the cost of overheads reducing their capacity to sell goods at lower rates.

There is no harm in the creation of jobs through setting up new stores with sustainable planning and good management. But to do this simply to accommodate party people is going to defeat the purpose of this chain. Over staffing and opening of non-profitable stores will increase the over all expenditure of the utility stores compelling government to raises prices which will hit the retail sale volume. But such matters are considered in businesses where proper accounting is done to know the profitability or otherwise, the profit per store per employee, the turnover of each store vis-à-vis its commercial viability.

But the Federal Minister for Industry Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo, who should have devoted himself to steering the industry from sluggish growth to create employment opportunities has done the easy thing: he has packed 3,000 people in the stores.

The government has only to declare utility stores as a federal ministry with a full-fledged minister, which in fact the ministry has already been reduced to. It is selling groceries. Is it because of incompetence or lack of direction?

The subsidies are going to vanish soon under IMF conditionalities. Already only Atta (wheat flour) and ghee is getting the subsidy. When that too goes, how would the utility stores meet the objective of providing essential food items to the poor at a reduced price?

khanmubarak@yahoo.com