Schemes that won’t work

This refers to the news report, ‘Buffaloes, cows and goats for woman’ (February 22, 2020). The prime minister has launched a scheme for rural areas to reduce the sufferings of the poor but it shall prove to be pain in the neck. Any scheme is a good scheme if it is workable. Poor people living in rural areas are already hard pressed; how are they are going to maintain buffaloes? Sooner or later these buffaloes shall be sold to local landlords being unsustainable. On the face of it, this scheme shall meet the same fate of the yellow taxi. The government should set up small industrial units in rural areas to absorb local men and women instead of wasting money on schemes that are bound to fail.

Mukhtar Ahmed

Karachi