Development for some

Many development projects of the PTI government appear to benefit only the affluent

Development policy under Imran Khan is a saga of revolutionary promises and regressive outcomes. The problem is that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has not moved to direct the country’s development policy and practice to serve the ordinary.

The PTI has shown that it took over without even the minimum preparation needed to deliver what it promised. The lack of preparedness is visible in the fact of unelected experts continuing to chair taskforce meetings to go beyond the documents on Naya Pakistan Housing Programme (NPHP). The parliament has been kept away from taking control of policymaking. There was a possibility, however remote, of citizens’ participation in development policy, especially in the Punjab. It was killed by rolling back the local governments in the province in early 2019. The role of the unelected (bureaucrats, experts and contractors) in development policy has therefore grown tremendously. The projects launched so far may be termed as ‘prestige projects’ — the initiatives meant to boost the collective ego of the rulers at the cost of ordinary citizens.

In addition, the government’s capacity to maintain the minimum response has also eroded. A hastily announced Rs 1.1 trillion package to relieve Karachi of 2020 floods disaster is an example. How could this money be provided to Karachi when the total outlay of the Public Sector Development Program 2020-21 was only Rs 1.324 trillion. In reality, only a small fraction of the money could be transferred to Karachi.

The government’s campaign promise was to replace physical infrastructure projects such as roads and trains with human development projects such as schools and hospitals. Unfortunately, the budgets for both education and health have been consistently slashed. Another social sector spectacle, the PanahGah, which is the only visible project on the ground, does not serve the homeless and the destitute but those visiting the cities for personal purposes. Most of the travellers can easily stay instead at some affordable hotel. A cursory night walk around the Data Sahib PanahGah shows hundreds of the homeless sleeping outside its walls after they were promised shelter.

Mega projects like the NPHP and River Ravi Urban Development Project (RUDP) are likely to be a long-term disappointment. The appointment of task forces and advisers on NPHP have not resulted in a workable blueprint for affordable housing delivery to low-income households. The bank loans scheme for housing has been launched apparently to show that something is being done in this regard. The ground reality is otherwise. Most of the loan applications are being rejected as the poor can hardly meet the eligibility criteria of the banks.

The RUDP is a future dystopia for Lahore but a moneymaking opportunity for real estate investors. The plan makes no sense as Lahore is already sinking into an ecological crisis and the current government has failed even to remove garbage from its streets.

The development paradigm has resulted in money being wasted on fancy projects rather than spent on prudent ones.

Recent scandals at Lahore Waste Management Company made this clear. The PM never misses the weekly meetings of RUDA, says Rashid Aziz, the RUDA head, with great pride. And yet, protests by those whose land is being acquired using the Land Acquisition Act 1894 for the RUDP, have gone unnoticed. This neglect makes the RUDP a ‘development through dispossession’ project, as David Harvey would call it.

The recently announced Central Business District in place of the de-notified Walton Airport is another example of helping the affluent make more money. Why should a government invest in creating a new business district when the problems of the markets of the poor such as vegetable markets, cattle markets and places like Shah Alami, are fast deteriorating?

The situation of environmental regeneration has deteriorated despite Imran Khan’s self-portrayal as being the “greatest environmentalist” of the country. The stories of unplanted, planted-but-dead and planted-but-uprooted trees are widely in circulation. A new import will soon join these stories. The Japanese Miyawaki technique of forestation has recently been introduced in Lahore. The tragedy is that the man who projects himself as the “greatest environmentalist” of Pakistan did not know that such foreign ideas contribute to killing nature. He also failed to understand that the botanical apparatus, i.e. Parks and Horticulture Authorities, that has burdened our landscapes with alien species in the past, cannot resuscitate nature.

The development paradigm has resulted in money being wasted on fancy projects rather than spend on prudent ones. The unprecedented transfers of senior bureaucrats at the development apparatus’s helm have further hurt the ordinary people. The disruptions resulting from frequent transfers have stopped what little the earlier governments got to achieve.

The development model needs to be replaced. If Khan changes this model and resolves to serve the poor, there is a way. The first step should be to decolonise the process of making and delivering development policy and instituting a people-oriented way of doing development by making his party and bureaucrats listen to the people.

The prime minister should also move to persuade his party and the bureaucrats to explain their projects to the ordinary people through the local government forums. There is an urgent need to humanise the hierarchically designed development apparatus at the Planning Commission of Pakistan and the Planning and Development Departments. They should be asked to respect local knowledge and successful development practices of the ordinary people, as demonstrated by Karachi’s Orangi Pilot Project of Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan, which Imran Khan has previously called a model for Pakistan. These steps can help Pakistan solve its developmental problems in an affordable, sustainable and inclusive way.


The writer is a scholactivist with Forman Christian College University and Punjab Urban Resource Centre in Lahore

Development for some