Pakistan at 100

World Bank’s report, ‘Pakistan@100: Shaping the Future’, has painted a grim picture about where Pakistan would be when it completes a century, if it doesn’t mend its ways. Which is a more likely scenario.

The key reform suggested by this report is to control the population growth rate which is the highest in the region at 2.4%. This, given the Pakistan culture and orthodox religiosity, is hard to control. Many governments have failed in controlling the population growth rate. The most robust population planning programme was introduced by Ayub Khan who had the guts to challenge the clergy which is a major impediment in population planning. His successor General Ziaul Haq, another military dictator, was too shy to propagate the benefits of family planning because his whole edifice was built on religion.

Here I am reminded of an anecdote that when Attiya Inayatullah was the adviser for population welfare to the president in the Ziaul Haq cabinet, the department of population welfare organised a one-week seminar for journalists giving us very good presentations about the population explosion and its implications in Pakistan. At that point, the population was growing at a dramatic rate of 3.1%.

On the last day of the seminar, we were addressed by the population secretary who first asked us to write on the importance of population planning and at the same time, warned us that we should not write in a way that the dormant opposition to family planning by the clergy is flared up. To this, I asked how it is possible that we write in favour of family planning without alerting the wrath of the religious lobbies who were pampered by the ZiaulHaq establishment. I didn’t get a reply.

So far, the drop in population growth has been through social pressure and urbanisation of the population. As it is, at present 60% people live in rural areas. The World Bank report has rightly pointed out the measures which should be taken to control the growth rate of the population. It emphasises on two major factors to encourage demand and access for family planning services -informed parenthood and focusing on women.

The report states that programmes should be implemented to support informed parenthood, provide education on reproductive health, which is considered a taboo and I am witness to campaigns against it, and child development. It also adds that provincial safety net programmes should be developed that aim to empower women and increase spending on female education and health.

However, I disagree with most reports which say that women have a little role to play in the agriculture labour force because even empirically it has been proven wrong. Most of the cotton pickers are women and rice sowing is also done mostly by them. Women also have a greater role in the harvesting of wheat and looking after livestock.

Even the World Bank report suggests the measures recommended by me in a recent column. It points out that irrigation water is not used prudently. It states that Pakistan’s water productivity is very low at $1 per cubic meter while the average in East Asia and the Pacific stands at $17 per cubic meter. It recommends three immediate steps towards water pricing which are improving water measurement and accounting, strengthening institutional capacity to map water use and enforce pricing reforms and in the long term, encouraging water saving through improved Abiana rates.

Imran Khan wants to double the revenue which is not possible without taxing the agriculture income. We know that agriculture is the provincial subject and that most of the agricultural land lords are members of the provincial and national assemblies. They might not agree to levy agriculture income tax but given the fact that right now agriculture revenue rates are very low, a slight and gradual increase may be acceptable to them, particularly now that these people have to file their source of income in the document submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

Without taxing agriculture, which contributes to 21% of the GDP, there is no other way to double the revenue. Exemptions can be given to the landlords who have less than 25 acres of irrigated land. A raise in Abiana will help in collecting money for the dams and it is fair also because it is the user charge.

It would not be difficult to collect agriculture tax if we impose it as an advance tax on the cash crops at the factory gate of sugar mills, ginning and flour factories. However, I would say that this has to be done very gradually starting with very low rates of taxes so that there is no hue and cry.

It is not enough to take the family planning measures alone, what is also needed is the investment in human resource stock. As the figures quoted by the World Bank report states that 38 percent population has stunted growth. This obviously reflects on their productivity ability.  At the same time our literacy rate is only 53% in spite of the fact that the enrolment rate in the primary schools is said to be 86%.  This means that there is a very high rate of school drop-outs.  Something which can be discouraged by investing in the primary schools and in teacher training as most of the drop-outs complain that the teachers beat them.  The main issue is to retain the 33% by giving them better atmosphere and facilities.

The Imran Khan government has failed as far as economic stability is concerned.  They have been unable to build investor confidence by harping on the corruption issue, which is endemic in the capitalist system.

Published in Daily Times, March 22^nd 2019.