IT has become common among our politicians that they highlight Indian social problems when some one questions them about their performance. They highlight India’s problems in order to hide their own failures.

Whenever Pakistani politicians come on the media, they keep saying that there are social problems in India like poverty, unemployment, inflation, unavailability of electricity, terrorism and other social issues.

According to the World Bank report in 2011, India’s population is 1,241,491,960 which is more than six times of the population of Pakistan. It makes good sense that for a country with so much population it is difficult to manage each and everything.

Yet they are growing. Their economy, literacy rate, film industry and educational institutions (which have been ranked among the top institutions of the world) are constantly moving ahead as compared to Pakistan.

India has constructed 62 dams, while Pakistan could not build dams just because of political egos of politicians. We can afford floods, but we can’t build dams.

At the moment, India is in a position to sell electricity to Pakistan and this is because of 62 dams. India is not only providing water to Indian Punjab, it is also generating electricity through these dams.

We have less than 200 million population in Pakistan, but as compared to India. We cannot compare Pakistan with India. I think the government should seriously think that instead of highlighting others problems, our focus should be on solving our own problems.

We are six times smaller than India, but we have more social problems. It should have been easier for the government to manage and facilitate people of Pakistan as compared to the Indian government.

In our provincial and national assemblies, we have special committees for different tasks. Our MPAs and MNAs are members of those committees. Then we have parliamentary secretaries, special assistants, advisers, ministers of state apart from federal ministers.

At the provincial level, we have ministers, but they do not represent the country at national level. In our bureaucracy, we have long chains too, both in federal and provincial governments.

But despite having fewer than 200 million people, we are unable to solve our problems and our politicians always point towards India, saying they have this and that social problem. We should first put our house in order before giving examples of others.

MUHAMMAD AWAIS Okara