Time to get real

LAHORE: This government is not short of impractical ideas. The idea of raising poultry at household level was floated to provide livelihood, shelter homes concept was introduced to accommodate homeless, and now opening of 50,000 cheap retail outlets to control prices.

If we analyse each concept, it would be found that there was no research or logic behind each concept. First we take poultry. The prime minister wanted to distribute four poultry birds each to rural women so they could start poultry business.

The problem in this concept is that poultry has developed into a well-organised industry. Hundreds of thousands of poultry birds are reared in a controlled shed that seals the birds off from all types of germs and diseases that frequently afflict poultry the world over.

Even workers in these sheds have to go in with special gear and after immersing their special shoes in a liquid disinfectant. The economies of scale make production in these sheds highly efficient.

We do not hear about the spread of bird flu these days because of these precautions. Those that failed to take this precaution have been booted out of poultry trade. The poultry reared in villages by households is frequently subjected to a disease called Rani Khait. Once it afflicts one bird in a village it spreads all over and kills the poultry stock.

Even if the rural ladies take this risk, no one can guarantee that they would be able to sell their stock in competition with larger players. This perhaps is the reason that the idea was never seriously pursued by the present government.

The only positive thing about the idea was the realisation that rural poverty needs more attention of the policy makers than urban poverty. Shelter homes and free meals operated by the private sector were already operating in the country, when the PTI government chipped in to run similar shelter home under the social welfare departments.

There was no need to supplement the private sector efforts given the high level of corruption and inefficiency in our bureaucracy. Our government has miserably failed to make any improvement in the operations of public sector companies. It is in fact making efforts to privatise them.

How can the state control the pilferages in the officially run shelter homes or free meal outlets? The free meal outlets in fact are discouraging people to seek employment. They come early in the morning to sit outside the private sector free meal outlets until they get their share by afternoon. Then after consuming that meal they come back by 4 pm to sit and wait for the evening meal.

This way we are turning our masses into parasites that do not work, but get their meals. You cannot go on providing free meals to able-bodied individuals as it discourages them to seek work.

Such meals could be served to those who are not able to work or are extremely vulnerable. In shelter homes, we also compromise the privacy of the residents as 8-14 people live in one room.

The concept of opening 50,000 retail outlets to provide essential food items at controlled prices looks good, provided the government controls inflation and ensures that the dollar would not slide more.

The state is already operating few thousand similar outlets under Utility Stores Corporation. We hear so many scandals about this corporation.

It is also supposed to provide daily use essential items at controlled rates. What the people actually get are third rate products like unknown ghee brands, sticky sugar, and unclean pulses.

Even then the prices go up with the increase in rates of these items in the open market. The government does subsidise but when prices increase that subsidy becomes insufficient.

The essential items have to be procured from the open market. Since the procurement is for 50,000 stores, the prices quoted by the supplier are lower than the open market rates but not lower enough to provide real relief to the consumers.

The government is finding it hard to manage these utility stores. Now it plans to open 50,000 retail outlets.

There are many questions that come to mind. Who will manage them? Will they be operated by bureaucracy or private sector? What would be the mode of checking? Does the government machinery have the capacity and capability to manage and monitor 50,000 outlets? How will the procurement be made?

Instead of making these cosmetic efforts, the government should make a plan to ensure new employment opportunities for the masses. We are passing through a rare stage when neither the economy is growing nor prices are under control.