Development without planning has acquired the status of a necessary evil in Pakistan. People cannot wait for the delivery of basic services like health and education before our fractured national polity is able to arrive at a consensus on what kind of development we need and how best we should pursue it. The haphazard development that results from this approach sometimes creates white elephants that people love to have but are loathe to bankroll. A proposed cadet college in Okara seems to have become just that — a fancy project no one seems ready to fend for. First proposed in 1986 and more than half built on 200 acres of land just outside Okara, the project is nowhere close to becoming a cadet college any time soon. In fact, the Punjab government has already notified that it will set up a 'Danish' school in the building once it is complete. Residents of the area are unhappy as are some prominent local politicians like federal minister Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo and former federal minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal, both having championed the setting up of the college during earlier stints in power. The Punjab government's refusal to let them have it stems from the fact that running the cadet college will cost as much as operating 1,000 middle schools. The project is too costly for the provincial education department to let it go ahead, goes the argument inside the Punjab Civil Secretariat.

Okara's people are hardly convinced. They believe setting up a 'Danish' school in a building that has already cost the federal government a whopping Rs200m is akin to constructing a zoo to house a sparrow. They are also not sure if the 'Danish' school — part of an official scheme to give free education to the children of the dispossessed — will be half as good as a cadet college could be in imparting quality education. Between the government's financial worries and the public's demand for quality education, the project may end up being nothing — neither a cadet college nor a 'Danish' school. This will be a costly reminder of how development without planning can degenerate into development without purpose.