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Friday March 29, 2024

Importing gram daal

Part - IIRandom thoughtsIn my last column I lamented the fact that, even though we are an agricultural country with the largest canal system in the world, we are importing 50,000 tons of gram daal from abroad. This is rather shameful and shows bad governance on a large scale –

By Dr A Q Khan
October 05, 2015
Part - II
Random thoughts
In my last column I lamented the fact that, even though we are an agricultural country with the largest canal system in the world, we are importing 50,000 tons of gram daal from abroad.
This is rather shameful and shows bad governance on a large scale – letting billions of acre feet of sweet rain water run unused into the sea causing floods and havoc in its wake, and allowing millions of acres of land to lie unused. In Gibran Khalil Gibran’s masterpiece that I quoted, he called “pity” on such incompetent people while I would rather say it is a divine curse called upon ourselves by corruption, mismanagement, etc, etc.
The importance of agriculture in feeding the ever-growing population cannot be over-stressed. There are vast tracts of unused land in our country which need to be properly utilised. I had suggested that the army chief utilise the corps of engineers to assist in this. They are very competent and a civilian agriculture expert could be attached with them to identify suitable projects and guide them in their work. Such a combination could yield excellent results. We had many army engineers at KRL and they all did excellent jobs.
All efforts at improving the economic situation have been largely unsuccessful due to rapid population growth. We have the highest birth rate in the area. Sadly, a large number of children die before the age of five due to malnutrition, lack of healthcare and lack of knowledge. Many children never see the inside of a school. Many villages have no medical facilities. District health clinics need major upgrading and should be provided with a larger number of qualified staff. Better use could be made of Lady Health Visitors in educating village women in child care, general health, nutrition and hygiene. Research has shown that child survival is directly related to the level of education of the mother.
Lady Health Visitors should also be trained in family planning programmes and be paid good salaries with attractive packages. The benefits of family planning should be explained to women and they should be encouraged to have three-monthly birth control injections by offering, for instance, a Rs2,500 incentive each time. This will cost Rs10,000 per woman per year – less than a month’s salary of a labourer. This money could help poor families and encourage regular child birth control, thus helping in containing population growth. This cost is peanuts compared to the cost of the disaster that is looming in the coming years. But who will bell the cat? We are all just like chain workers – jacks of all trades but masters of none.
At the time of the separation of East Pakistan in 1971 we had a population of 80 to 85 million. Now we have reached 190 million. If this trend continues there will be no land left for housing colonies and we will have to build them in the Arabian Sea. Malik Riaz might just about be willing to accept that challenge. We are already a poor country. How will we deal with such an enormous population influx without becoming the most impoverished nation of the world? The reason for this problem is simple: no proper planning, no proper birth control programmes, no large-scale industrialisation or e-economy, not enough schools and no properly planned educational and research programmes. The result has been obvious. Large, poor populations result in crime and all sorts of evils. Already we are 15 percent short of water for Rabi crops.
The government must pay serious attention to agriculture, horticulture, crop diversification, etc and their related technologies. The yield per acre in our country is much less than that of China. We should send many agriculture students abroad to get training and allow foreign experts to teach at our agriculture universities. We do have some good experts in the country, but postings usually go to more or less incompetent bureaucrats.
An ordinary BA from a mediocre university becomes master (I mean, Jack) of all trades after a few years. I studied at the best universities in Berlin (Germany), Delft (Holland) and Leuven (Belgium) and worked for a number of years in Europe before I had the necessary knowledge and experience to do something useful. Education and experience are a must in order to tackle any important project. For example, in China, ministers are experts in their respective fields, as are the other high officials. And they don’t get shunted around with every change of government. They remain in their departments where they are aware of requirements, expectations, forecasts, etc.
Our former ambassadors to China can testify to the differences between the leaders of that country and ours. In conferences and negotiations we invariably cut sorry figures due to lack of expertise on the subject in question.
We once welcomed a Chinese minister to Pakistan and showed him Lahore, Peshawar, Abbotabad, Karachi, etc. He was very knowledgeable, a veteran of the Chinese Long March and a close friend of Chairman Mao and PM Chu En Lai. At the end of his visit he took me aside and confided that he foresaw a big crisis for Pakistan looming in the decades to come. He pointed out the problems of uncontrolled population growth and the food, housing, etc overload that it created. Now we know exactly what he was talking about.
My column on a role for the army in national development drew many favourable comments. Almost all appreciated the proposal and wholeheartedly supported it. The first to comment in a telephone call was our noted politician, writer and former secretary general PPP, Qayyum Nizami. He highly appreciated the suggestion and said it could only come from the heart of someone who loved Pakistan. I replied that, had that not been the case, I would never have left beautiful Bhopal in the first place or later left an excellent job with bright future in Europe.
We, refugees, are often not considered ‘true Pakistanis’ and seen as enemies. I also received two emails from expatriate patriotic Pakistanis. The first from Dr Kamran Syed, an expert hydrologist working in the US, and one from Mr Abdullah Gulzar working in Canada with a well-known company dealing with water management. Both appreciated my proposal and found it viable and practical. Both even went so far as to offer their services, provided I was in charge of the programme. I guess that is like asking for the moon.
NOTE: In my last column my pensions was erroneously mentioned as being Rs446 per month. This should have been Rs4461 per month.
To be continued
Email: dr.a.quadeer.khan@gmail.com