KARACHI: Sindh is the richest province of Pakistan in terms of economic resources. There are two ports that generate almost $24 billion of Pakistan's annual sea trade. During the last fiscal year, Sindh contributed 69.02 per cent of national taxes.

"Only Sindh has a tax culture. Other provinces do not have a tax culture," the Sindh finance minister claimed in a seminar recently. It produces 48 per cent of the country's total gas, 39 per cent of electricity, 62 per cent of crude oil and 31 per cent of coal. After the 1977 military takeover, there was a feeling in Karachi that there was a systematic de-industrialization and pauperization of the province. But Sindh still reportedly maintains an impressive industrial production ratio of about 35 per cent and 25 per cent of agricultural production in Pakistan. It continues to remain the biggest hub of the services sector in the country.

With these enviable economic indicators, Sindh carries a burden of over 33 per cent unemployment in the officially counted population of 35 million (30 million in 1998). A report of the Asian Development Bank consultant estimated the extent of poverty in Sindh at 53 per cent. Karachi attracts the highest number of unemployed from all parts of the country and illegal immigrants from other countries.

Out of an estimated 12 million population, some 40 per cent (about 4.5 million) live in what are called kutchi abadis (shanty towns) in Karachi. No wonder, the population growth ratio in Karachi is the highest in the country - at over five per cent.

Sindh's rural areas present a spectacle of extreme social backwardness. Islamabad's indifference, an inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy and a parasitic feudal gentry have kept Sindh's rural population in a perpetual stranglehold. Sindh's 'sufi image' has been blown out of proportion to justify keeping Sindh's villages in the dark ages.

Even after an investment of about Rs83 billion (about $1.5 billion) during eight years from 1991 to 1999 under the foreign aided Social Action Programme (SAP), the female literacy ratio is not even 14 per cent. Girls enrolment in schools remain a dream as lady teachers are not ready to teach in village schools. There are no lady doctors in a large number of village dispensaries and hospitals. Hardly 22 per cent of the rural population has access to water supply schemes and 91 per cent of the rural population does not have any sanitation facilities.

But all the social indicators and economic ratios mentioned above have been derived from generalized information obtained on a piecemeal basis. There has never been any comprehensive and scientific study either at the macro or the micro level to find out grassroots-level realities.

In this backdrop, Unicef in active collaboration with the Sindh planning and development department has taken up a Sindh Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS) in the province.

"The MICS is the largest sample survey held so far in the province, covering all 16 districts, including the 18 towns of Karachi, and it is stretched over 23,784 households," a senior planner of the Sindh government said. Planners claim that MICS is an internationally tried and tested methodology that has been used in 100 countries as a household survey. Unicef has developed MICS methodology in collaboration with WHO, the United Nations statistics division, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 100 teams of enumerators and statisticians were deployed to collect and gather information on more than 50 social indicators in the urban and rural areas of the province.

Some of the indicators on which information is being sought is under-five mortality, infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate, use of safe drinking water, distance from water, adequacy of amount of drinking water, use of sanitary means of excreta disposal, washing hands, disposal of waste water and solid waste, net primary school ratio, gross primary school attendance ratio, children out of school, where attend school, literacy rate, antenatal care, contracepting prevalence, age at first pregnancy, fertility rate of women from 15 to 49, total fertility rate, child birth care, birth weight, tetanus toxoid, exclusive breastfeeding rate, any illness during past two weeks, diarrhoea, cough, high fever during past two weeks, treatment by doctor, hospital or clinic, average cost for treatment in rupees, average cost of medicines, birth registration, knowledge of preventing HIV/AIDS, average income, utilities, remittances, receipt of zakat, education cost, health cost, food and total expenditure and ownership of assets.

The survey has been completed and statisticians are now busy in processing the information and data to find out 58 specific social indicators. This will be the first scientific attempt in Sindh to determine vital social indicators in both urban and rural areas. This will set in place an information system that will be continuously updated and facilitate monitoring and planning from the provincial to lower tiers of government.

But there is still need to look into what happened in the past and to learn from it. During the last 34 years, the Sindh government despite very limited resources invested more than Rs100 billion in development. "A lack of clear direction, bad management and lack of efficient application of resources have plagued Sindh's development programmes in the past," says an official document.

Sindh has been found to be a "graveyard of development schemes and projects" because the bulk of development schemes were taken up purely on political considerations. Hence many of these schemes were abandoned halfway and many could not be completed because the runover cost had become unbearable.

Official planners found 3,419 primary schools in the province with no student enrolment. There were 4,322 schools with no teachers. And then there were 8,841 shelterless schools. No wonder the dropout rate has been around 70 per cent.

Development has not been impressive in healthcare either. Previously, 1.59 doctors were available for every 1,000 persons. Now the same number of persons have access to 3.34 doctors, despite the fact that heavy investment was made in the setting up of 90 rural health centres and 678 basic health units.

Bad management and corruption have led to the squandering of public money and loss of credibility with the donors. "At least three major aided projects were plagued with corruption and mis- procurement," discloses an official document without identifying the specific project. One such project that has become a big scandal is the first and second phase of the Social Action Programme. The total investment under SAP is said to be about Rs83 billion.

The bulk of this went to brick and mortar investment and apparently enriched certain bureaucrats and a class of contractors. Female enrolment in schools never reached the prescribed target. Not only schools and hospitals remained vacant and without students and teachers and doctors and patients, a large number of water supply schemes and drainage projects were left incomplete.

No head rolled, no accountability was undertaken except a few statements from government functionaries, and the entire matter was hushed up in the province. The National Accountability Bureau probably never knew about this money squandering.