Why can’t Pakistan emerge from crisis?
Some days ago I watched a news package on a private TV channel; the topic was that farmers of Guava plantations are facing hardships while sustaining the industry.
According to that news package, this industry is slowly turning it into rubble and ruins; in fact situation is so worse that they (The Farmers) need bailout package or in more common words a patronage to keep their plantations alive.
They also had a demand from government to set up a pulp extraction plant so their crop could be processed and preserved.
This reminds me of Mughal era when artists & poets used to make appearance in the royal court just on a purpose to seek royal patronage for their survival despite of their quite non-beneficial skill & talent.
This is not the first time that this kind of demand have been made from government. Wheat, cotton and sugar cane cultivators do enjoy certain benefits offered by governments.
In fact they enjoy amenities that no other sector is currently have like subsidized electricity, tax exemptions, interest free loans, subsidy on inputs like fertilizer et cetera; even the government procure their crop at much higher price as compared to market at the expense of the general taxpayers money.
These farmers or cultivators are landlords with feudal and political interests, and they leech away every single dime from the people and still they are portrayed as oppressed.
Whether government have had funds to invest on education, health or justice system or not; these farmers get their share regardless of financial position of the government; which is actually made up from the money from taxes that have been directly or indirectly collected from ordinary citizens.
And all this happens under the universal umbrella of law and order; because they have legalized and developed a complex system over decades of continuous inputs and alignment; thanks to the fact that most of the law makers have feudal or landowner’s background.
Their enterprise is running its research and development projects on people’s expense. They know their system is seamless without a crack; people don’t have an option, they can’t refuse; they have to fill their belly, they can’t starve.
The issue is it’s causing a horrendous damage to country. Pakistanis spend millions and billions on import of staple food items annually. Since by God Almighty’s grace, Pakistan is an agricultural country but we still import lentils, chickpeas, edible oil, seeds, pesticide, and fertilizer on a massive scale. Sadly our feudal, land owners, farmers et cetera have not evolved.
Right now when I’m writing this my hometown Chakwal has enormous potential of growing grape vines and olives. Its soil is gifted with abundant minerals, nutrients and all suitable particles to cultivate both; the good thing is some visionaries understand this and feel the potential; but issue is it’s not industrialized yet.
Whenever I talk to these cultivators they start to look towards government. Why don’t they understand that it’s not the government’s job; you have to do this on your own. After this argument, they come up with a counter-argument that they don’t have enough resources.
My point is they have property and land worth millions if not billions spread across thousand if not millions of square meters; why can’t they spare some of it to form a cooperative or a joint stock company to do this professionally? You can form a cartel to pressurize the administration but can’t form a cooperative for mutual growth? Why?
Another problem is that Pakistanis would do anything else of the solution but would not stick to recommended solution to get their job done. For example, it’s a known fact that Pakistan is still having energy crisis; electricity load shedding is a common phenomenon. At a time, some short sighted administrators including bureaucracy and politicians came up with a hack; they allowed setup of gas, coal and furnace oil based power plants to generate electricity.
They not only spent billions of tax payer’s money to setup these electricity producing plants but also encouraged and invited independent power producers (IPPs) to do the same. Rest of the story is known to every tom, dick and harry.
They are regularly compensated in terms of fuel price adjustments (FPA) which in-turn is collected from electricity consumers in their monthly electricity bills by power distribution companies. Furthermore it has adversely affected our trade balance.
Pakistan pays billions in terms of import bill for purchasing oil, gas and coal. The same is true to some extent for food and agriculture sectors. We are importing consumables which has drastic impact on our country’ economy.
Pathetically these actions have worsen the situation instead of improvement. Our economic Titanic is sinking with every blink of an eye. There is some hope, like there are few private sector fertilizer producers & some private energy companies trying what they are good at; in their own way to tap the potential.
Some of them are trying to extract coal from Thar Desert to produce electricity and numerous other startups are trying to bring renewable energy solutions, but they are a very few. Also these are not very efficient or tech savvy; they are doing well, but are highly dependent on external sources.
What do you think? They don’t know all about this? They do; they do allow to keep the ball rolling; they did this and would do it again on a purpose. Why don’t they allow or motivate someone to setup manufacturing facilities to produce solar panels and wind turbines?
Politicians should be the true visionary leaders; bureaucrats must be included in the list, because they are the real super mind behind every governmental policy; they earn their job after a competitive process, aren’t they?
Most of efforts are put into giving bailout packages & amnesty schemes; these are good for some, but at what cost; like recently there was an amnesty given to construction sector; it would definitely create a financial impact but very few would benefit like elite class expatriates or business tycoons, with almost nothing to benefit the ordinary poor.
What if they developed new cities or housing societies in arid countryside of barren-deserted districts of Baluchistan province; instead they are swallowing agricultural land on the suburbs of metro cities.
What if they legalized & allowed high-rise mega-tall sky scrapers in small towns and cities? According to my research it is now forbidden to build basement in a new building in small towns like of mine; even authorities are reluctant to approve building plans, why?
On the other hand they don’t have any problem with those who are swallowing agricultural land & ruining forests which is bringing drastic & dreadful damage to eco system.
I think my approach of developing underpowered people and communities of far flanged remote areas of nowhere would have had a real impact instead of nurturing already saturated metropolitans.
Baba Rehmta was more concerned of sustaining mythological ancient ruins and its tale instead of listening and acting on plight of hopeless. His activism is just driving the useless conversation without any benefit to general masses. Where is the pavilion of Baba Rehmta? Where did he setup his tent? I want to question his authority and capability; what fruits he is currently bringing for me?
He was the self-proclaimed custodian of social uprising of powerless. He was more concerned of evaporating tears of a mythical creature. He wanted to keep people busy in fruitless endeavors; perhaps mere an attention seeking illusion, maybe?
I remember someone said “If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward” but issue is we collectively took the meaning of this quite differently; everyone is chasing their own dream, plundering as this is the last day before doom and they might not get a second chance, Why? Your wrong doings has brought us to the brink.
But what’s the solution? We have tried several models before; currently we are trying to follow Chinese model, if we get tired from this in near future, then try to follow North Korean model, if anything is left after-all. If you have left any sympathy for the country avoid power struggles and start sharing what you have. All of us have to come out of personality cult, we have to diminish between ego and collectivism. Celebrate what we have collectively done and move forward to create good for everyone.