Daily Times

We have come to a stage in our national existence where placebos and anodyne solutions do not matter anymore. We need doers, pure and simple, as the luxury of time that several nations have been afforded for national development no longer exists for us. Through a languid fatalism that gelled well with our millennia old lifestyle in these Indus Valley plains we have coasted along, relying sometimes on the nature’s bounties and sometimes on the geostrategic dividends. First, our once plentiful natural resources have given way in front of the implacable wave of resource extraction. The water scarcity, energy deficiency, air quality deterioration, deforestation, and urban space shortage has already affected us severely, while we, with one of the highest population rates in the world, look at these developments in a daze of expectancy waiting for a messiah!

Secondly, our external balancing stratagems, born initially as conflictual concomitants of a Cold War rivalry, seem to have been seen through by the new global power architecture that is not ready to accommodate those any longer. Our “China Bandwagoning” is also fraught with the risks of a resource capture ala “Hambuntoota” model by a rising global power. One thing is for sure, that this time around no one would be willing to bail us out without extracting a heavy price that could range from economic enslavement to denuclearisation. Henceforth we cannot afford to rely on the largesse of indulgent allies because, in this “Neo Hobessian” jostle for power and resources in a multipolar anarchical world order, such indulgences would simply not be possible any longer. We have our problems and we have our solutions. What we ruefully do not have are the doers to translate those grandiloquent schemes of national development in action. For far too long we as a nation have talked and talked endlessly on the meaning and purpose of our national existence. We have been dealt raw hand by the forces inimical to our existence in the past yet we have not been catalysed into action.

Imagine 62 million young people without the jobs or skills to make their mark. This is a frustrated mob, seething with anger

So what are those problems and what are those solutions and what should we expect of our doers? First and foremost is the all devouring juggernaut of the population explosion. Whatever we do gets drowned in the ever increasing population tide. Bangladesh that had a population problem has managed to control it through a very active population planning program while we have added 57 percent more people to our 1998 census tally taking our population to 208 million, 60 percent of which are below 30 years of age. This youth bulge of under thirty that we sometime back proudly claimed as a population dividend is rapidly becoming a liability.  Imagine over 62 million young people with majority of them without jobs and requisite skills and education to make their mark here or abroad and one would get the drift. This frustrated mob seething with anger will most probably vent its anger on the gated islands of affluence that would feel the heat in the shape of crime, disorder, and civic unrest. We know this population problem and we know its solutions too. Who are the doers here? There is an emergent need for a “National Population Control Task Force” answerable to the Chief Executive.

The second problem facing the country is water scarcity. A country that fails to build dams despite seeing its arch nemesis India build over 4000 large dams after independence is courting disaster. Despite investing $300 billion in water supply infrastructure, the demand side of the agriculture development with antiquated irrigation practices has resulted in poor productivity. A farmer still pays a paltry sum of Rs 137 per acre as water charges in Punjab with no incentive to conserve water. With the demand for crops alone growing 8% in the last two decades, there is no alternative to big dams for vital irrigation and flood mitigation needs of the country. Enough thinking and dithering has been done. The construction of large dams should be started under WAPDA with security assistance by the Army. A National Coordinator for large dams be appointed forthwith to work under the Prime Minister’s office directly to coordinate the national efforts towards dams’ construction.

The third problem is the energy costs and, shortage. This can be addressed through correcting our energy and power mix, wherein indigenous oil, gas and renewable energy should be our main focus. In addition to constructing large dams, indigenous coal reserves and gas should be our main focus of exploration. High risk high reward offshore oil and gas exploration should also be attempted at priority. Our coal based power generation plants should be encouraged to adopt most modern technology to achieve maximum efficiency as well as ensure environmental compliance.

Our fourth problem is the crumbling health system. Nowhere in the world could any government finance free health facilities for people without adequate taxation or some kind of an insurance system. The time has come to invest more in health with adequate national spending as a percentage of GDP, along with a national insurance policy for the masses. The doer in this case needs to be the National Health Ministry that should be staffed by the best and the brightest with representation from armed forces as well. The number and quality of public medical colleges and universities should be also be enhanced.

Our fifth problem pertains to education. We need higher education spending as a percentage of our total national spending. The focus of education should be on creating a pool of internationally acceptable graduates especially in the fields of science, medicine, and engineering. The vocational training should be afforded special attention in order to produce employable youth capable of spurring indigenous industrial revolution besides finding employment abroad. People with proven academic and education development credentials should be made head of a National Technical Education Task Force and empowered to develop and implement a long term education development strategy.

Our other problems like infrastructure development, tax collection, and industrial development are no less important and require the same degree of attention and resources. Our political proclivity to concentrate power at centre and provincial level has to make way for a decentralised political power sharing arrangement with the masses. It is time we got rid of the antiquated District Management System through bureaucracy and replaced it with a truly empowered local government system

Politics in our country in its present form has come to represent the interests of a clique that uses the name of democracy to perpetuate its hegemony on the levers of power to amass more wealth and influence. The poor masses need to be delivered from this kleptocracy masquerading as democracy. Time for equivocation is over. We perform or perish as a nation and for performance we need doers not talkers urgently.

The writer is a PhD scholar at NUST and can be contacted at rwjanj@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, July 2^nd 2018.