Development Pakistan

Is there any taker of Land Reforms any more?By Akhtar Ali(akhtarali1949@gmail.com)Elections are approaching and political parties are preparing their manifestoes. All are unanimous that people got a raw deal both under dictatorship and democracy. Some leaders argue that corruption is the central issue which if solved would automatically improve the lot of the poor. This may be true but only partly .Some argues that more democracy and unthrottled democracy would, in the long run, eliminate poverty, as happened in the West. While this may be true, democratic societies are also doing some soul searching whether democracy has performed efficiently towards maximizing people’s welfare. There are strong anti-capitalist under currents bringing forth movements like Occupy the Stock-Exchanges .Democracy and a corruption free administration would certainly improve the lot of the poor in the long run. More than one-third of Pakistan’s populace is abject poor and the rest are only slightly better except for a tiny minority. The task of ameliorating if not eliminating poverty is too big. Trickling down effect may take too long, a time span that will endanger the integrity and solidarity of this country.What to do. There is worldwide recession. Economy has performed awfully badly for both domestic and international reasons. There is a misplaced even dangerous perception that things work out themselves and that no major initiatives are necessary, as has been the case with most military dictatorships. The entire cushion, unfortunately, has been eaten up. In our region, our adversary has been progressing faster than ever before. Economic disparity between India and Pakistan cannot be sustained for along time and would lead to the same kind of fissure that led to the dissolution of the Soviet system ; disparity and failure in economic and social performance .We will have to apply some direct tools and policy initiatives to improve the lot of the poor. But the government does not have money; it does have resources and the only transferable resource is Land. We will see in this space as to what can be done in this respect.There is a general thinking that the days of Land redistribution or reforms are over. It is outmoded or out of tune with times. Land redistribution leads to fragmentation which results in lower agricultural productivity. And that land redistribution may result in loss of agricultural production because the poor would not have the working capital to buy the inputs. Many religious scholars have also opposed land redistribution arguing that Islam respects private property. It is also true that most of these arguments have roots in the opposition to Communist ideology in the days of Cold war. There are equally convincing arguments to the contrary ;the Land belongs to Allah; private property rights only pertain to the cultivated land ;land gifted by infidel colonialists to their supporters has no moral or religious sanction or support ;hunger and poverty are enemies of Islam and Allah; feeding the hungry is the state’s responsibility in Islam; smaller tracts in Pakistan are more productive than the large tracts ;mechanization is easy, cheap and readily available even to the small farmer in the form of rentals; large tract s of lands leads to feudalism which militates against liberty, freedom and development and conspires with the forces of status-quo and militarism as has been demonstrated by the history of Japan and even here in Pakistan. And the biggest falsehood is that all land has been distributed under previous land reforms and there is nothing more left; all farms ownerships are less than 500 acres. It has been acknowledged that there are hundreds if not thousands of landlords who own tens of thousands of acres of land, violating the existing relevant laws. The biggest argument against the land reform is ; who will bell the cat ? The situation on ground is that the landlords are not prepared to even pay income tax on their huge incomes; and the majority of civil and military elite is feudal. Military middle classes are transformed into landed elites through awards and rewards and many other routes. It is argued that one has to either wait for a near catastrophe of the dimensions of 16th December 1971 and the emergence of a Marde-Khuda. Marde Khuda came in 1971, but he conspired with the feudal and launched an anti-industrialist agenda and even strengthened feudalism. And then several Mard or Namarde Khuda came in the form of military dictatorships who probably had the power and wherewithal l to take some drastic land reforms programme, but acted to the contrary finding ready friends among the land lords. However, short of catastrophe and civil war, and without the Marde-Khuda , there are some solutions that we are going to take up in the following. Among political parties, MQM does have anti-feudal agenda, but lacks a land reform commitment and suffers from narrow geographical support. It is possible that in future a political coalition may emerge that may be ready to act on some kind of land reforms programme and taxing the large agricultural incomes.Agriculture and PovertyAgriculture has a share of 26% in Pakistan’s GDP and employs % of the work-force. The sector has a potential of growing at rate of 5% p.a., as it did in 1960s earlier. Low growth rates in the economy in general and in agriculture has significantly contributed to poverty and unemployment. Poverty in Pakistan, as measured in 2007-08, was at 26%, which should have increased in the wake of floods and the economic crisis, and has reportedly returned to the previous high levels of 33-38 % of 2001-2002. Rural poverty has always been high in Pakistan at 40% plus. A major reason for it has been the landlessness and low employment. A good 10.36 % of the rural house-holds are landless peasants and another 57% (35.1 % of total population) are under-employed and under-paid non-farm laborers. Both of these groups could benefit from higher agricultural growth rates, land reforms and land redistribution.Higher growth rates would create employment in farm and non-farm sector and would increase wages and incomes. Both growth and equity policies can be mutually reinforcing. Our argument is that the Livestock sector in Pakistan has a contribution of 47 % in the agricultural output, which has been mostly contributed by small holders or the landless, having 2-5 Buffaloes. If 1-1.5 Acre plots are distributed to this group of the landless and the non-farm workers, under a land reforms scheme, it would contribute to both, output and equity. Similarly, the proposed beneficiary group could also participate in high value horticultural sector, which has been shown to have a growth potential of 5.0% p.a. A reasonable land reform component along with the distribution of state land to the rural and possibly urban poor could go a long way in reducing the endemic poverty in this country. Many recent writings have indicated the destabilizing potential of the rural and urban poverty and disparities. Even the Taliban issue is interpreted as having linkage to poverty and deprivation. This creates a new logic and rationale for land reforms which may not only be restricted to land distribution but should go well beyond towards improving upon the tenure issues. The author would strongly argue against the so-called market efficiency and growth-sans-equity policies for example as in Egypt which have worsened the poverty and inequity conditions.Land Ownership and Utilization in Pakistan__________________________________________________________1) Number of households / population increased by 25% during the two censuses (1990-2000).2) Number of farms increased from 5.071 million to 6.6 million: 1.549 million farms added: an increase of 30.54%; total Farm area increased by only 6.15 %; 0.6% increase p.a.3) Number of farms under 1 hectare (ha) remained almost the same; however, farm area under this category increased by 68.47 %, an addition of 483,000 ha. Percentage of these farms in the total number of farms increased from 27 % to 36%.4) Number of largest farms, 60 ha and more, decreased from 15000 to 14000, a decrease of 1000 farms; area under these farms also decreased from 1.936 million ha to 1.683 million ha a decrease of 15% in area.5) In 1990, 27% farms had 4% of total farm area, while the largest farms (60 ha and more and, less than 0.5 % of the total number of farms) had 10% of the total farm area .In 2000, 36% farms (under 1 ha) had 6% of the total farm area, while large farms had 8% of the total farm area. Has the skewed distribution decreased? In 1990, the large farms’ total area was 2.75 times higher than the total area of small farms( under 1 ha) area, the same ratio decreased to 1.42 times only ; skewed distribution and disparity still quite high ,but appears to have been reduced by almost 100%, under this indicator.6) In Pakistan about, 6.6 Million farming families own 6.6 million farms, over a farm area of 50 million Acres (average size 8 Acres), of which 20% farm area remains uncultivated. 58% Farms or farm house- holds have only 10% of the total farm area, call them very small farmers( under 5 acres); 37% small farmers (5-25 acres) own 47% of the farm area; 5% larger farmers (25-100 acres) own 26% and 0.5% (30,000 families) of super land lords (100 acres plus) own 11% of the total farm areas.7) Some 19% of the total farm area remains uncultivated. In small farms up to 93% of farm land remains cultivated. This percentage goes down with the increase in farm size. At 100 acres plus, roughly one-half (50%) of the land area remains uncultivated and unutilized.8) About 2.6 million acres of farm area in large farm size category remains unutilized, which is under the control of 30,000 super land lord families. Another 1.5 million acres remain uncultivated in 50-100 Acres plot size. Potentially about 2.6-4 million acres (50%) of unutilized farm lands is “distributable”. Two million landless could benefit.Our Land Reforms experience; a reviewAlthough Muslim League Leadership was 'mostly feudal the latter felt and recognized the popular pressure for land and tenancy reform. Hari Report, Daultana Commission, MLR-54 and MLR-115 have been the major milestones in the land and tenancy reform history in Pakistan. The last move in this respect dates back to 1977, when PM Bhutto announced a new package of reforms including lower ceilings on land and allotment of government land to the poor tenants. Freedom movement and the ideological conflict between the East and the West created and sustained pressures for land reforms in the developing world. Ideological period having gone, the futility of the earlier reforms and the en-trenchment of feudal interest in Pakistan's body politic are possibly the reasons, why any such move does not get even mentioned these days. There is substantial postwar evidence that the societies which implemented meaningful land reforms, and put an end to feudalism, could transform themselves into the new dynamism required for scientific and industrial growth and development. Taiwan, Korea and Japan are classic exam¬ples. Taiwan and Korea utilized the opportunity created by the exit of Japanese landlords to launch deep and effective land reforms. Pakistan lost this opportunity which was available to it after independence, as many non-Muslim land owners fled the country.The economic rationale for earlier land reforms was based more on optimal considerations and hither-to under-utilization of the lands available with the big land lord. It appears that redistribution impact was much less of a consideration in the view of the planners and decision makers. The political objectives included acquisition of political legitimacy, and shaking and controlling the feudal class through carrot and stick approach and enhancing the political clientele and image among the masses. Ayub Khan's reforms (MLR 64) put the upper ceiling of irrigated land at 500 acres per family and un-irrigated at 1000 acres per family. Compensation is to be paid through inheritable bond which earned 4% p.a. interest and land was to be redistributed at a price. Bhutto's reforms (MLR 115) put the upper ceiling at 150 acres irrigated and 300 acres un-irrigated per member of a family. No compensation was to be paid to owners and the land was to be distributed free. Put together, the two land reforms affected about 4% of the land, only half of which was actually transferred to landless. Only about 100,000 farming households 8% of the total (and even much less if landlessness was included) benefitted.A New Land Reform PackageIn Pakistan, 28% of the total landmass is being under cultivation, and huge chunks of land remain unutilized. About 6.6 million households own 6.6 million farms over a total farm area of 50 million acres. Only some 80% of this farm area is actually cultivated. The remaining 20% of the farm area remains uncultivated. Small farms utilize up to 95% of the available farm land, while large farms owned by big and powerful landlords remain uncultivated to the extent of almost 50%.A total of 2.66 million acres of farm area remains uncultivated in the large farm category(100 acres plus). Some 30,000 landlord families could benefit one million plus landless families, if uncultivated land is given away to the latter under some Land Distribution Scheme, if not land reforms exactly. In Land Reforms, usually land is forcibly taken away under legislation or revolution without any compensation.There is also a case for bringing more land under agriculture. Perhaps ten million more acres could be added by new land expansion and development activity probably in the next ten years. This would mean one million acres per year of new land to be transferred to the landless. One would argue, where would the water come from? We are already short of water. We are currently wasting water under existing flood irrigation practices. The new land under the landless families would be from the very beginning on more efficient Drip Irrigation (D.I.), which may be cheap as well as efficient. The landless poor beneficiary would be more inclined and capable to introduce bucket and pipe drip irrigation. He would not have much choice. He does not have many choices in life either.Thus about 14 million acres of land (10 million new and 4 million existing unutilized) could be distributed among the landless over a period of some ten years, benefitting 5-6 million families, with a farm of 2.5 acres each, practically solving the issue of landlessness, if not of poverty totally. Even after getting 2.5 acres, he would not be totally out of the clutch of the grinding poverty. But he would get hope and the tools, to handle the economic problems of his family.Pakistan would need more land under cultivation to feed its ever increasing population, as productivity increases are too far and few in between. The diseconomy of scale, if any, of the small farms should be taken care of by an organized Cooperative movement that could take care of the credit and inputs. Land is the only thing that governments can afford to give free, may be charge some development cost in the long run under a concessionary credit scheme. Land remains on earth. It does not evaporate and does not disappear. It is excellent collateral for the poor. After all if a country belongs to its people, they should all own some piece of land, however, small it may be.Land has been distributed in Pakistan among the rich and powerful and literally given away at dirt prices. Some effort would have to be made to include the poor in this largesse. There is a mass appeal and appetite for land confiscation by the state without compensation. Hence the two attempts at land reforms, even though unsuccessful. Any new land distribution scheme should be careful and respect the federalism requirements and the local and regional rights. It should not import people from the outside, unless in special cases, where demand and supply gaps may exist.On the other hand the big landlords may be induced by the State to do away with their excess unutilized land by imposing a variety of taxes including the much dreaded and opposed Income Tax .Excess land can be acquired by provincial governments under a land bond scheme carrying a reasonable interest rate. The poor land allotee may also be required to pay off a part of the land price under a concessionary credit scheme. Similar schemes have been implemented in Japan, Korea and Germany immediately after the Second World War of 1945.Landless peasants can be given a 1-2 Acre farm each, at 50% of the purchase cost under 4% p.a. and 20 yrs repayment. Alternatively GOP and provincial governments could develop 2-4 million acres over a period of 7-10 yrs, possibly under budgetary outlay than the procurement of private land. Government of Sindh is already implementing such a programme at a modest scale by converting kutcha forest land but without forest, to agricultural land and distributing among landless. This can be done with much ease in Balochistan, where large tracts of land remain unutilized. For political and possibly good reasons, land in Balochistan can only go to Baloch and hence only 1.0 million families could benefit .Almost all the house holds in Balochistan could get a reasonably sized farm. In Punjab, the problem is difficult due to large population and in NWFP the land is limited, although in both the cases there are less populated areas tribal belt in NWFP and southern Punjab. Instead of giving lands to reward generals and bureaucrats and large real state investors, the scarce land should go to the landless poor.Land is the only thing governments, mostly provincial, have. Budgetary resources are limited and cannot almost always be enough, be it BISP or Zakat fund.The cultivable waste landThere was a total of 8.22 million ha of cultivable waste land available to be cultivated, perhaps all of it government land, almost half of it (3.97 Million ha) is in Balochistan. There are only 1.163 million households in Balochistan. If this land is distributed, every house-hold in Balochistan gets 3.41 ha (8.5 acres), much more land than most of the household in Punjab. One doesn’t have to take it away from some one; The Government and the province of Balochistan have this with themselves. Likewise, KP has 1.21 million ha of cultivable waste land, and only 2.77 million house-holds. KP has a land area problem, and about 0.5 ha (1.25 acres) could be distributed to every family in KP. Some 1.29 million farms in the country are under 0.5 ha. It is better than being totally landless. Some of the allotted lands would be sold, because every one cannot enter into agriculture. Ultimately, if 50% of the house-holds end up selling the allotted land, the average farm size increases to 1 ha, which should be quite sufficient to produce food for a family or produce products of an equivalent value. Alternatively, GoKP could allot the available wasteland to 50% of the families, to get the same result. In Sindh and Punjab, landless are high in number and the available cultivable wasteland much less. Nevertheless, 1.6 million ha of this land available in Punjab could be distributed among 3 million households. Similarly, in Sindh, 1.44 million ha could go to another 2 million house holds. A total of 6 million households, out of a total of 14 million rural households can thus get land, without resorting to redistribution. There is a big if in it. The land may not have been grabbed already by the powerful. It has come to public light only after the floods that in Sindh; most of the sailabi land had been grabbed by the powerful landlords, and had been put to share-cropping.Times have changed. Today’s reports of World Bank and IMF and other western agencies read like communist manifesto. The kind of poverty and hunger eradication literature that is coming out now for more than two decades would have sent the writers and publishers of those writings to jail or severe marginalization, in 1950s, 60s and even 70s.Today the biggest enemy or adversary of the World powers is religious fundamentalism and extremism and has replaced the erstwhile Communism. Let me quote here from a report compiled under the aegis of USAID. Ironically, USAID and the World Bank have supported land reforms in the past in many strife prone regions. Taliban issue seems to have created a new rationale for land reforms among the donor agencies. It is being argued that Talibans may exploit the issue and would most probably be successful in drawing support from the landless poor farmers and enhance their appeal and domain. There is significant evidence that most of the Talibans and their supporters come from the landless class.There are other options and components of reform programme as well that extend to water rights and urban housing schemes. Under new irrigation schemes, whenever these come up, trade-able water rights could be awarded to the landless, which he could sell to the willing customer or use it as his collateral or share in the distribution of agricultural output and profits. In this way he becomes partner in place of surf.In urban land laws, provisions for high -rise building societies could be introduced, where virtual plots in the third dimensions are allot-able. Real state developers could be encouraged to develop multi-purpose projects, where in lieu of subsidized land or free land use conversion, a certain percentage of 3-D plots are allotted to the poor. Currently a lot of money changes hands on conversion of agricultural or residential land to the commercial one. Some fee does go to the local or provincial government but most of the surplus is siphoned away by the builders, landowners and the social and political elite. So the name of the game is to create policy or innovation surplus and divert it to the poor.There is a lot of government land that is available on the periphery of Karachi near Sohrab Goth (outside Karachi limits) and in district Thatta that could be allotted to the flood victims especially from the inundated towns of Jacobabad, Larkana and Thatta. If Sindh has to develop regional economies are to be established, as has happened around Lahore. Karachi itself would benefit from the regional economic development as Lahore has. Karachi's' economy has been stagnating for many years now. One of the reasons is lack of close geographical interactions and resource reservoirs. Every body would benefit. However the idea would fail if it is used for political and ethnic manipulation and advantage.I would like to add a caveat here. Last PML (N) government headed by Mr. Nawaz Sharif introduced an innovative housing policy and strategy for urban areas by transferring surplus government land and plots for low-cost public housing projects. A good innovative project was, however, reportedly marred by construction scams. There was no need of involving government in construction by a party which believes so much in private sector. That project perhaps is revived in one form or the other. Some residual land or assets may still be there. Musharraf government quietly put a lid on it. No NAB case has been filed with respect to this project apparently. May be, there is one or a few. I am not sure.These are excepts from the writers forthcoming book; Pakistan’s development :economy, resources and technology

Why Did We Not Develop Or Progress? Pakistan.

2011-07-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.brecorder.com/articles-a-letters/single/626/0/1211237/?date=2011-07-13

STRENGTHENING POLITICAL PARTIES

2011-07-10T11:08:00.001-07:00

http://www.brecorder.com/articles-a-letters/single/626/0/1210088/?date=2011-07-10

GOOD NEWS PAKISTAN..Where do we go from here.

2011-07-09T08:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.brecorder.com/articles-a-letters/single/626/0/1209768/?date=2011-07-09

Good News Pakistan..Reasons To Do More.

2011-07-07T11:05:00.001-07:00

http://www.brecorder.com/articles-a-letters/single/626/0/1208792/?date=2011-07-06

Rekodeq Copper and Gold Project

2011-02-24T03:02:00.000-08:00

Abstract

There is a lot of controversy these days over the Rekodeq Copper and Gold project. A number of people have requested me to explain the rather complicated issue and hence this article. A foreign company Tethyan has completed exploration of the resource located in Chaghi, the famous place where Pakistan’s first nuclear explosion was carried out, and has prepared and submitted a feasibility study for consideration and approval of the government of Balochistan. The company claims, and perhaps rightly so that it has spent some 200 million US dollar on the project studies and exploration over the past several years. The company expects that it is given mining rights pursuant to its exploratory efforts and investments. The company proposes to bring a foreign investment of 3.2 billion USD and has provided for spending 50% of the investment on local procurement of goods and services. For seemingly archaic confidentiality reasons, the company has refrained from revealing its feasibility study, which has created doubts and controversy among the mind of general public. The project is being opposed by many quarters. This article takes account of the debate and the arguments, attempts to build a picture of the project in terms of real numbers, develops proposals on royalty issue based on international practices and in conclusion broadly supports the project, while advising Government of Balochistan to avail the services of third party experts in contract negotiations with the company.

Summary

1) Present mineral sector output in Pakistan is a paltry o.4% of GDP, way below its potential variously estimated at 2-3% of GDP, which would mean an annual output and exports of 5000 Million US dollars.

By comparison, IMF contribution to foreign exchange deficit is slightly more than 1000 million USD. However, mineral sector has been stagnating due to low technology and small scale mining and that mostly in non-metal sector. Except for Saindak with an output of 16000 tons of blister Copper, there is no sign of large scale mining, benefiting from foreign capital and technology.

2) TCC-Rekodeq is a good window of opportunity; Pakistan has been waiting for years. With a foreign investment of 3.2 Billion USD and an annual output of 220,000 tons of Copper and 16 tons Gold ,resulting in annual exports of more than one Billion USD, it is a project of international scale in every respect.

3)The project has been opposed on many counts, the most significant ones are as follows; a) the monetary terms offered by the foreign JV TCC are not adequate; b)we can do it on our own and make more money; c)there should be local processing done within the country instead of the export of raw concentrate. The alternative cited is a ECNEC approved project.

4) We have studied the international Copper industry and its workings including several large scale projects in the pipelines. We have examined the PC-1 of the ECNEC Copper Rekodeq project and other claims that have been made in this respect. We have also studied the data of Saindak Metals in so far it is publicly available. We have also examined the TCC project data, mostly based on the data and info available on the company website, and some press reports containing some useful data. We also had had an opportunity of examining the data from Aynak project in Afghanistan, which contract has been recently awarded to MCC of China.

5)The ECNEC project is very small with a daily ore output of just 5000 tons, as opposed to 110,000 tons per day of ore output of TCC proposal. It is even smaller than the existing Saindak. ECNEC proposal relies on small scale mining of the local mining companies. It is doubtful, if even 5000 tons of ore can be mined by the local sub-contractors. Understandably, its cash cost per ton are very high, i.e.3158 USD per ton, several times higher than international cost including those of TCC. It is widely known that small scale mining operations are uneconomic and the ECNEC project only supports that. There is a high probability that this project runs into snags, cost over-runs and lack of output. There may be a good chance of success, however, if the ECNEC project restricts itself to mineral processing, a point that we are going to take up later in these passages. ECNEC project does not make the kind of claims that have been attributed to the project. There is no possibility that it can give an output of 45000 tons per annum of finished Copper. The claims of the ability to give profits of 133 Billion USD can only be termed too exaggerated, unrealistic and grotesque, if not out rightly false. Apart from a poor economics, the premise of relying on local mining contractors to provide the raw materials output for such high through-put rates so as to generate 133 billion USD of Gross Profit , does not stand up to robust calculations and judgments. It cannot be done. Hence no profit or outputs in those scales are to be expected.

6) If there is a compulsive need for demonstrating capability, excellence and utilization of S&T manpower, it can be done on many unexplored and unexploited resources lying dormant in Kohistan, Waziristan and in Chagai itself. The ECNEC project, as small as it is, may be implemented on those resources. These areas badly need investment and employment opportunities. ROZ funds of the USAID could be mobilized there as well.

7) On the other hand, TCC proposal has been prepared by world renowned consultants and overseen by two big JV partners Antafagosta of Chile, where the latter operates several copper mines including Leach-Electro win operations. The other minority partner, Gold Barrick specializes in Gold project. The project structure and numbers are in broad conformity with similar international projects. t is quite likely that the proponents would make a success of the project and would be able to produce and export in the quantities planned.

8) This, however, does not mean that TCC proposal cannot be improved and altered, keeping in view some of the reasonable aspirations and requirements. Local processing component could be added, for a portion of the output. Local processing can be done by TCC itself based on its operations in Chile or give it to a local or foreign JV or to the proponents of ECNEC project. Other financial terms offered can be negotiated as well. It should be discussed in a business like setting in a transparent environment, avoiding legal battles and claims on both the sides.

9) ECNEC approval of a Copper project is rather strange in the wake of a consensus on FDI and privatization and in the light of a bad experience in Saindak. GOP has privatized many profitable ventures in the past and many strategic projects like HMC and KSEW have been put on privatization list. Some explaining of the rationale is in order.

10) TCC could have followed a better project politics and communication policy which would have prevented hostility and debate against the project. It has taken the classical view that the ore being Sulphide cannot permit the much economic and viable route of Leaching. There is abundant evidence to the contrary. Many projects have been launched recently by such big names like Phelps Dodge, BHP, Codelco etc. Infact earlier data available on the internet about Rekodeq as released by TCC included a leaching component for a percentage of output. We have included a table to substantiate this. Local processing is an important political issue, if not an economic one. It should have received much more serious attention. Secondly, it is the archaic attitude to secrecy contending that its feasibility studies contain technical secrets. This is untenable. TCC cannot possibly teach its competitors any thing new. A more open communication policy would have been in its own interest generating public confidence and support.

11) TCC project can be a start of a new chapter in Pakistan’s mineral sector offering technology, capital and exports and can be a good example to attract investments in other minerals. The reverse can also happen, if this opportunity is vitiated and wasted in hostility and delay.

12) No looting is involved in the project proposal, neither is the Reqodeq project out of this world and not certainly worth trillions of dollars. Infact, its Cu content is lower than elsewhere and matches only the US deposits which are generally considered inferior. Its on-surface valuation of 100 billion USD is realistic, and the proponent company may not be able to net over more than 3-4 billion USD over the entire project life cycle of 56 years, as is the case with other comparative projects.

13) A 50% share in gross profit is a good formula and matches with competitive offerings elsewhere. Contract framework must ensure that the promised terms actually result in the expected income. Contracting for such high value projects is a highly complicated business. Government of Balochistan should establish a transparent negotiating structure and process under the guidance of a transaction adviser seconded or selected by multi-lateral agencies and their processes.

14) Government of Pakistan may do well by launching an information campaign disseminating true and realistic data and information to correct public opinion and perceptions mired in conspiracy theories and unrealistic presumptions regarding uniqueness of mineral deposits in Balochistan and Pakistan. The reality is that there are abundant mineral resources in the world vying and competing for the investment of foreign capital and technology. The uniformed public opinion in Pakistan creates mistrust and unrealistic romanticism and folklore which in turn feeds separatist tendencies.

Conclusion and Recommendations

1) The proposed Rekodeq project is in national interest and it should be allowed without stalling it in unnecessary argumentation. It would bring in much needed foreign investment and would contribute in a meaningful way in energizing Pakistan’s economy.

2) Government of Balochistan should adopt a transparent process in negotiations with the company with suitable advice and over sight. Government of Balochistan should engage the services of an independent professional transaction advisor to facilitate a reasonable agreement maximizing national and provincial interests in the framework of adequate profitability and international good practice. International tendering is not the only feasible option always.

3) Environmental aspects should be investigated adequately and requisite remediation provided for within the established rule and good practices.

4) The company is expected to adopt a more open policy towards releasing adequate information out of the feasibility study conducted by it. Trying to hide facts does not create confidence in the minds of the general public, either in Balochistan or elsewhere in the country. It would be in every body’s interest if all aspects of the projects are out in the open.

5) Consideration should be given to provide for producing blister Copper. The company has proposed a very capital intensive and risky transport system of installing a 682 kms long slurry pipeline. The same investment could be diverted to installing Blister copper facilities. Recognizing that copper smelting is an energy intensive operation, Flash smelting based on electric arc furnaces based on cheap electrical power from Iran could be considered as a technical option. Alternatively the Bio-leaching SX-EW route could be implemented on mineral waste and tailings and as well as the virgin Sulphide ore as has been done elsewhere in the world(pls see appendix for details). The company has already offered a fund of one million US dollars for undertaking the relevant feasibility study, which is a welcome step. A separate JV can be formed for this purpose, with a possible participation of Pakistan’s private sector. The mining contract should provide for local sales, if and when such projects come up.

6) A railway track linking Rekodeq mine site with Gawadar airport would have been a more advisable option for concentrate transport. Reportedly that aspect was investigated and dropped in the least-cost perspective. GOP may be asked to fund the additional finance, if required.

7) A 189 MW power project has been proposed based on furnace oil based Internal Combustion Engines in a combined cycle mode. Pakistan is already burdened under very large unsustainable oil imports. Rekodeq has Good Wind and Solar Thermal resource. It may also make a good commercial sense to have a wind-cum solar thermal based power generation, whereby the mines process heat requirements may be met through the wind-solar combine. Possibilities of imports of cheap electrical power from Iran may also be looked into, if nothing else, than to add to the projects energy –mix and security.

8) There is almost a national consensus on pursuing open economic policies encouraging FDI and privatization. It is in this spirit that even profitable companies like PTCL have been privatized. It would be highly unadvisable for government to venture into the risky and capital intensive business of Copper mining. Government is already facing problems in meeting the deficits of large public sector corporations. The claims of self-doing do not meet up to our robust enquiry and consideration. There are other Copper deposits in the area where local excellence and expertise can be adequately demonstrated. These would become more feasible, once the proposed project is implemented which may provide a pool of trained manpower.

9) The project deserves much more conscientious attention of all the stake-holders in the interest of the best outcome in the form of the earliest implementation maximizing national gains, without recourse to a possible international litigation that may not be in Pakistan’s best of interests.

Table 6: Rekodeq profits, royalties and Revenue projections (guess-estimates)

Assumptions		USD	%	50 year Revenue
Assumptions	One year revenue		Percent	50 year Revenue
Total deposit Tonnage	billion tons	5.9
Economic Deposit	billion tons	2.5
Ore composition
Ore copper	%	0.53
Ore Gold content	gms per ton	0.30
Ore concentrate
Copper output	Tons per year	200,000
Gold output	Oz per yr	250,000
Average selling price CU	USD per lb	2.2
Avg. selling price gold	USD per Oz	1,200

Royalty rate	% of sales	5
Before Tax Profit	% of sales	30
Tax rate	% of profit	30
GOB Equity	%	25
Estimates & Projections
Sales Total o/w		1,268,000,000	100.00	63,400,000,000
Sales Copper		968,000,000	76.34	48,400,000,000
Sales Gold		300,000,000	23.66	15,000,000,000
Annual Royalties		63,400,000	5.00	3,170,000,000
Estimated Profit o/w		380,400,000	30.00	19,020,000,000
GOB share		95,100,000	7.50	4,755,000,000
Tethyan Profit b. Tax		285,300,000	22.50	14,265,000,000
Tax Rev. GOP		85,590,000	6.75	4,279,500,000

After tax Profit Tethyan		199,710,000	15.75	9,985,500,000
Total GOB Revenue		158,500,000	12.50	7,925,000,000
Total Pakistan Rev		244,090,000	19.25	12,204,500,000
Asset value

Ore Copper Value	Billion USD	64.13
Ore Gold Value	Billion USD	31.68
Total	Billion USD	95.81
Asset value(@royalty rate)		4.79

Source: Authors Estimate: Based on Tethyan website data

Full pdf report here. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B7bxkHDcg3mhYTJlYmJmNzgtOGNhMS00NTQ0LWExMWEtMzA1ZTBjMWRlYTQw&hl=en&authkey=CIyZ56MK

In the aftermath of floods.. New book on google docs for free download.

2010-10-15T01:06:00.000-07:00

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B7bxkHDcg3mhOGY3YWM2NjItZDUxZS00N2IzLThjY2YtYTViYTJmMDllMjI3&hl=en&authkey=CP2wrbkP

The Scope and potential of compromise and national reconciliation

2010-10-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

There may be a scope for compromise among well meaning liberals who wish to bring about an egalitarian system replacing the existing unjust and feudalistic order under the garb of democracy, and the Islamists, if not the die-hard terrorists. The common cause among the two, otherwise diverse groups could be a “just socio-economic order’. Liberals may have to forego or postpone their emphasis on Western values of wining and dining, flaunting and exhibitionism, vulgar and obscene media etc.

The Islamists may have to forego or postpone their emphasis on initiating Islamic interpretation and implementation with “cutting hands”, caning the defaulters, mishandling women and restricting their participation in economic life.

Ziaul Haque’s Islamic rule came with trying to impose “hand chopping” punishments without arranging and providing for the poor and hungry (the latter) as enshrined by Islam. Talibans in Afghanistan did violence to women coming out of their homes and interfered with relics of other religions. Pakistani Taliban flogged a girl and routinely destroyed girls’ schools. On the other hand, liberals insist on flaunting sexuality and nudity, even display of sexual acts on television and media, and all that goes with it. Both the diverse penchants can be delayed or if not totally, foresworn permanently, till happy and workable solutions are found.

Elimination of hunger, poverty an injustice can be the compromising agenda, if the two sides are faithful to their ideals. The recent revival of the judiciary should not be confused with the social justice. The former is legislative and even elitist while the latter is real, enduring and all pervasive. Liberals could never have the wherewithal to change the system while the Islamists have a wider base and can mobilize support, mass appeal and street power. Islamists need respectability and acceptability in the corridors of power, national and internal, and a marketable outlook. Jamaat e Islami originally, perhaps, offered a potential vehicle, but has now chosen an extremist path. Many in this country dread a collapse of the system and sudden surrender at the hands of extremists in the form of a hurriedly organized compromise. The alternative prognosis of a pervading war of attrition with extremists led by TTP is not a good prospect either which may leave us divided and under developed, with our neighboring India looking forward to reap the benefits. An intellectually negotiated consensus should reside as an option of the State of Pakistan.

Profile of a settlement

A conference of Pakistani Deobandi scholars and ulemas had been called recently by the government circles to garner support (and a declaratory supporting statement) against terrorism and suicide attacks. The organizers could not succeed in getting any fatwa or statement against terrorism unleashed by the Taliban, led by TTP and other factions. Indeed as reported by the daily Dawn newspaper and by its editor, everybody else was criticized and condemned for their failures; drone attacks, the US action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the non-Islamic character of government in Pakistan. The conference reveals confusion in the minds of Deobandi scholars, if not outright support for terrorism. Earlier there was the Lal Masjid episode, in which demand for Islamist system was pushed by the extremists who occupied a children’s library and created a severe law and order situation. Unfortunately excessive force was used which resulted in many deaths and disappearances of the female students of the religious seminary. It is often said that this show of force by the rulers at the time resulted in further alienation of the extremists from the existing system and the Pakistan Army and impelled them towards a deadly terror campaign that materialized soon after the Lal Masjid episode.

Subsequently the Swat peace deal did not succeed and was followed by operation Raahe Nijaat, in which the whole city had to be evacuated and the infiltrators and terrorists had to be wiped out after a deadly military campaign. If we look for the common thread in the demands and the conduct of the extremists, and the participants of the Deobandi scholars’ conference, we can conclude the following:

Resentment against immorality spread through the media and films, CDs etc with the assistance or benign neglect of the government(s) of Pakistan.
Establishment of some obvious manifestations of Islamic system especially a fast-track legal system based on Qazi Adalat and Shariat.
If they have their way, they would also have demanded several anti-woman initiatives, stress on beard and salaat etc.

On the first two, even liberals may like to support the extremists. Many of us would not like to show us on TV, what is being shown e.g. vulgarity and raw sexuality and almost copulatory acts. All kinds of x-rated films and songs encouraging flesh trade are not the grievances of the extremists but also have a common cause of conflict with an average law abiding and progressive Pakistani.

That the existing legal system of Pakistan is highly inefficient, corrupt and time- consuming and absolutely inadequate for the needs of an average Pakistanis well known and almost undisputed. Without sacrificing the fundamentals of the existing legal doctrine and regime, it may be possible to induct a fast track effective system which is available in the form of a Qazi system on which there are procedures and consensus.

Small cause courts, felonies and personal laws like marriage, divorce, inheritance etc., could be entrusted to Qazi courts, wherein both lawyer and police are avoided and side tracked. Most people cannot afford lawyers and police and want to have immediate recourse to an institution which is readily accessible, without intermediary and un-necessary costs and whose quick adjudication can be achieved. Qazi / Shariat adalat system could be introduced first in NWFP, in the districts where there is excessive demand for the new system. Localized referendum can be organized to ascertain the will of the people. In Punjab and Sindh also initially some rural areas could be given to the Qazi system.

Keeping in view the deteriorating situation and even expanding and intensifying terror campaign by the militants and fundamentalists, the choices before liberal forces are not too many. They may risk a future war of attrition at best and a take-over at worst. Pakistan’s states’ security cannot be left to the whims of a handful of liberals who may idealize western cultures and values, but are totally out of tune with the minds and attitudes of a largely uneducated populace living in harsh and difficult conditions. Poverty and extremism are usually best friends.

Attempts to force the change in seminaries curriculum and the associated pedagogy would not succeed. However, enmasse induction in these seminaries could be completed away by offering alternative education facilities to the children of the poor. Financial and modernization assistance such as libraries, computers and internet, provision of teachers of modern sciences such as economics, philosophy and natural sciences could in the medium to long run may dilute extremism and help produce more balanced and seminary graduates and scholars.

Cultural adjustments with Terrorism- some unconventional ideas?

2010-10-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

Pakistan has just been through the havoc of floods and has to mange the aftermath of floods. Although the direct impact of flood has been borne by the victims, the indirect effect of the losses of crops, cattle, infrastructure etc would have to be borne by every body. Food shortage and inflation is already calling on us. In Pakistan, already one in four used to be starving under below the poverty line of minimum physical nutritional requirements. What will happen in the aftermath is any body’s guess.

Earthquake, terrorism and now these floods; some people say, it is Azab (God’s curse). Nothing would be crueler than this kind of characterization. Most of the sufferers are poor people, who have no share in the wrong doings of our society, and the rich and the powerful. Most natural calamities are defendable against to quite a degree. Elsewhere people have leant building earth quake safe buildings and structures which greatly reduce the damage and impact, if not eliminate altogether. There are reasonable protections against floods like dykes and dams. We either did not build dykes or those were not adequately high or strong enough or were not in good maintenance.

Even after such severe floods, there are people who say there is no excess water to be stored. Elsewhere, people have built dams to prevent or reduce the intensity of floods and to store water to fight drought. They are against Kalabagh dam and not against other dams such as Bhasha. KP has some reason to oppose it, but why Sindh. Some people suggest that expediency demands that the issue of Kalabagh dam be not touched lest it may ignite opposition to other dams as well. But the fact remains, that we are not willing to see the light of the day, even after even probably God tried to convince us of the merit of the case through sending these floods. It has been estimated that 45 MAF of excess water has flown in these floods, which is more than the combined storage capacity of all dams, existing and future ones including the,”dreaded Kalabagh dam”. The only reason the proponents of Kalabagh dam raise its issue is that it can be built the earliest and fastest as all planning work on it has been completed. We can start getting cheap hydro power in a matter of five years, while in other cases it may take twice longer.

Terrorist have not spared their Muslim brothers during or after these floods. Are they really Muslims? They are but they are misguided mufsideen. Who were Kharjis and what they did. This is not difficult to identify this old strain in Muslim society. They attacked Data Darbar earlier and now yesterday they again struck at Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s shrine and have accepted responsibility. Some or most fundamentalist parties and persons blame foreigners including the US for these atrocities, even after their admission. It means that TTP is directed by the US and India and Israel. They would not agree drawing these conclusions. There cannot be more thankless and unimaginative people than us to blame America for this.

There may not be any compromise with the terrorists but there can be a compromise with their front men and protagonists who are not directly involved but have considerable sympathy with the terrorists and their Jihad. Most fundamentalists avoid openly condemning terrorists may be due to the fear and more probably because of a common theme that the Pakistani state is almost a Darulkufr and it should be destroyed in its present form to be replaced by an Islamic system of their type where women are flogged and daughters kept away from schools. We may have to think about their ideology and thought process. Most poor people and by definition the majority of Pakistan seems to be in their favor-the fundamentalist clergy. Terrorism is expanding, it is not abated. Even if they are in not such a majority, as it may appear apparently, they are in significant number. Some accommodation has to be sought with them. Democratic conduct also requires that the liberals show some sensitivity to their version of ideology. This is not enough to say that we are all Muslims. The differences in approaches and understandings are great.

Surely some mid-ground can be found. The background talks that are going on with some of the good terrorists or our own terrorists should be accompanied by some negotiations on philosophical and ideological issues with their front men. Some cultural adjustments would have to be made. Flagrant demonstration of flesh business by pimpic media must end. Democracy does not, at least the stage we are in, does not need, that kind of freedom. Many other flagrant demonstrations of western culture may have to be suitably curtailed. It is often speculated that documentary and media evidence of objectionable materials and other unnecessary carnal exhibitionism is used by the terrorist organizations in their training and inculcation?

One may argue and perhaps quite justifiably that it may be downward slippery ride to the abyss. For the likes of fundamentalists and terrorists we are facing, even Saudi cultural restrictions are not enough. On the other hand Muslim liberalism may have to also define as to where culture stops and flesh business begins. At this moment, it is also a slippery ride into the western permissiveness of 1960s.

Certainly, this government has to tackle many problems, many being simply inherited. All people and parties should be cooperative and show some compassion and sympathy than simple and cruel opposition, criticism and condemnations.

Bonded Labor: More needs to be done than passing a law against it

2010-10-06T02:33:00.000-07:00

Bonded Labor: More needs to be done than passing a law against it

Poor laborers and Haris are always short of cash and have to borrow, often from their employers, some loan, advance salary etc. Once they borrow it, they can often not pay back, mostly due to harsh borrowing terms. And thus they become bonded labor aka slaves. Infact lending to employees and labor is often used as a tool for inducting forced or bonded labor. Most share croppers fall into this trap, especially when the crop prices used to be depressed, which is no more the case. Unemployment, sickness, marriage, birth and legal and police entanglements etc, may create conditions enough for the poor to borrow and fall into this trap. The most abominable aspect of this practice is that the whole family is taken into bondage including children and women. Human trafficking and rape are common inflictions.

Anti-Bonded Labor Act had been passed in 1992, after the Supreme Court of Pakistan declared this abominable practice as unconstitutional. However , the situation has not changed much. No violator has been convicted yet, despite this widely prevailing practice among employers and agricultural land lords. More has to be done than having passed the law. Only if a few violators were targeted, tried and convicted, some discouraging signals would have been sent. Only once in a while, some media stories are published because of some extraordinary cruelty and stupidity of a violator.

Agriculture, Brick kiln, mining and household is the major sectors indulging in bonded labor practices. There are some unscrupulous religious elements that ideologically support bonded labor as slavery, the latter used to be a permitted practice in Islam. No more. But some people may always make a morbid case. There is a strong case that a clear Fatwa is issued against it and widely publicized.

There could be other market based tools employed to discourage this practice on the lines of Environmental labeling. Businesses could be encouraged not to deal with the individuals and companies indulging in Bonded Labor practices by the way of publishing a black list of such persons. Business federations own byelaws could adopt such a practice. Governments, federal and provincial, should also compile a list of such persons and entities, under which prohibitory orders could be issued. Banks, for example may decline to do business and extending loans to such persons, whose name is published in such a black list. If government finds it difficult, some NGO connected with the Labor Departments could assume the responsibility of compiling such a list. A lot of other steps could be taken creatively such as requiring suspected or impugned violators to issue and submit certificate that he or she does not indulge or has abandoned this practice.

Government of Pakistan Peoples Party has a special moral and political obligation to take action in this respect, as it has been founded on the pro-poor and pro-labor principles and philosophy. Other parties may also have propounded such philosophies, but PPP has a special standing and commitment in this respect. It would also be politically expedient. Sending influential violators Jails would create news. In politics, either you create news or your detractors or opponent would create news-against you. So go getting

Improving governance:increasing government contact through social media

2010-10-05T02:10:00.000-07:00

Times have changed.There was a time when transfer of phone set from one room to the other was illegal.Fax was illegal,as late as 1980's.Most government departments have websites although with varying levels of output and communication efficiency.

Governments now have terrific communication tool available in the form of social media.Increasingly ,government departments in Pakistan are putting themselves on face book,although this trend is in an initial stage.Only a decade ago , bringing about this level of communication by governments on their own would have cost millions of dollars.Governments (federal and provincial) ought to develop a communication policy on the utilization of social media,with a view to encourage the use of social and other internet media such as blogs,chatting desk(Information Desk).

A lot of time of people could be saved in travelling to the government offices and departments for finding information on various matters.For one small issue,one has to visit several departments and locations some times.Case processing could be put on the web as Courier companies have done.As one can know from the website of a courier company,as to where one's posted item is at a particular moment,similar could be the case with,NIC cards, passport,driving license,taxation etc.Chatting could supplement information desks,for the latter one has to travel to the location,while with chatting ,the same could be done without visiting.There are several advantages of chatting vs telephone: chatting is cheaper,more reliable and accessible,is amenable to quality auditing by the supervisors.We know the performance and problems of 17.A lot of travel time ,traffic congestion ,fuel consumption ,pollution and consumer frustration could be reduced by utilizing all these facilities optimally.Two decades ago,PPP government made Awami Markaz for roughly the same purpose, now Awami Markaz could be brought to peoples homes and computers.

Policy and facilitation can speed up the adoption of these tools and technologies ,which may take a longer time otherwise.In this respect , government should tighten up its relevant departments.Electronic Government Department needs to be reorganized and energized.Governance,performance and development come in small bits and pieces ,but if innovation and initiative is sustained , it can add up to a grand total,that is visible and perceptible.Concluding,following steps may be taken towards adoption of social media and other internet communication tools:

1) A formal communication policy with a view to encourage social media and other internet communication media.

2)Adoption a and induction of Face Book,Chatting,Tweeter and Blogging.

3)Blogging is cheaper and easier to maintain than websites,which often require specialists.

4)Maps of the locations of the departments should be published on the internet.This has become so easy and is free due to Google Earth.

5)Case processing history and status updation be posted on the websites of the departments,on the line and style of Courier companies.

HEC;Financial difficulties of the Universities

2010-10-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

Reportedly University Vice Chancellors have threatened to resign over their budgetary difficulties.HEC's under which universities operate, had its budgets phenomenally increased during Musharraf regime.In pursuit of elitist agenda , a crash program was launched to elevate the level of higher(university) education and Science & Technology.The assumption was that by throwing money at something , one improves its quality.All kinds of fancy programs were launched and money was wasted. Some of the programs like building new universities with foreign faculty simply could not take off at all , while other continued with varying levels of output,efficiency and achievements.It was widely accepted that a lot of money was wasted under egotistical and whimsical programs without stake -holders support and objective bases and criteria.

We do not want to go into the details .Suffice is to say that most of those programs are not sustainable and would have to be trimmed or curtailed altogether.Priority has to return to the primary and secondary education.Besides,in the aftermath of floods , a lot of humanitarian rehabilitation of flood victims have to be done.However, there would be practical issues in curtailing programs for which third party contracts have been entered into or the Phd students that have been sent abroad.Such cases would have to be sorted out on a case-to-case basis.Prime-minister has reportedly formed a committee to sort out the issue . HEC and its subsidiary institutions have to return to real life situation and condition away from the aberrations of the past.Vice Chancellors are mature and experienced people and should be amenable to reasonable adjustments.It is not easy and even not advisable to take sharp turns,while contractual obligations should be met.

The need of the hour is that apart from ending frivolous programs , universities should launch programs towards enhancing their incomes and budgetary self reliance. I would not recommend enhancing fees to unaffordable levels,but would make a case of increasing subsidiary earnings through contract research ,endowment funds and fee and rentals.At least some(10-20%) of the budget should be earned through contract research.We have discussed this issue in detail elsewhere.

Flood Tax vs income tax on agriculture

2010-10-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

Flood Tax is being contemplated by the government.Normally nation would have gladly accepted the additional load.However,there are several reasons that voices have been raised from popular circles against it.

Firstly,if it is levied on imports,it may be akin to be a tax on poor and the rich alike and may contribute to inflation.Secondly,if it is on income tax , it would mean milking only those,especially ,the salaried class which is paying its taxes without default. Thirdly,it has been argued and demanded that tax net should be expanded and exempted sectors brought into the tax net.Income tax on agricultural incomes and capital gains on stock shares are the two major exemptions.Debate has even extended among donors and public abroad,who think that Pakistan should start bearing its own load and shun the policy of foreign dependence on all kind of aid,flood and otherwise.The taxpayers in the west complain that if Pakistan's rich are not paying their dues ,why should their tax money should be helping Pakistan.

Just today Prime-minister Gilani has announced that some difficult decisions may have to be taken and that he was ready for that.Let the agricultural income tax be one of those decisions.Any body who earns taxable income ,should pay income tax as others do.There used to be an argument against this, citing low and depressed crop prices paid to the farmer.No more is that case valid today.International prices are being paid despite poorly paid agricultural workers and sharecroppers.

And it sends a wrong signal and a depressing one spreading despondency and estrangement.Bulk of Pakistan's ruling elite comes from the agricultural land lords.It is extremely disappointing that they exempt themselves and shirk in sharing the load.Initially,lower landholdings could be left exempted and taxation may start from 50 acres and onwards.Agriculture accounts for 25% of Pakistan,s economy , and should be able to add significantly to the government revenues.

Although I am personally not a taxation enthusiast and I have made my views for lower taxation in Pakistan elsewhere,arguing that economic growth could also be laid by private consumption. it is also a sad fact that in Pakistan tax collection is at a dangerously low level of under 10%.Exemptions ,especially in agricultural sectors not only reduce revenue but are a major source of tax dodging and concealment of income. all kind of incomes are grouped and hidden under exempt agricultural income.If you are a landlord , no question asked.This must go.

Flood tax may only be tolerable by the public in general and taxpayers in particular,,if income tax on agriculture is imposed simultaneously.Finally rulers should declass themselves.Their job is to act in the common national interest .It is another story that democratic governments are so much pressurized by the vested interest from the beginning demoralizing them so much , that any intention or incentive to bring in critical reforms is severely discouraged.despite such difficulties,government of the day must act in national interest and show courage and determination.

Improving Governance; the easy targets in Education and Health sectors

2010-10-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

There are two areas where governance has been quite lacking in Pakistan during all regimes,military or dictatorial.These are Education and Health.As for Musharraf regime , it had a lopsided attention in education,as indicated by an abrupt increase of Higher Education budget by a factor of 10.This was done to the detriment of primary and secondary education , which is directly related to the poor.This confirmed his penchant for elitist model of development.

Generally education and health has received scant attention as measured by a persistent historical trend of under-investment in education and health.After floods,any scope for improvement in this respect may not be possible.However,what would be definitely feasible and required would be to utilize the money that is already being spent more efficiently.Reportedly there are many ghost schools,teachers,doctors,heath clinics and facilities.These people and facilities draw salaries and budgets ,but remain at home or keep themselves busy elsewhere.These people are often powerful or pay their way out by sharing their income and budgets with those whose job it is to control such criminal delinquencies.

This is at once easy and also difficult.It is certainly easy for those who are eager to show performance and improve governance.It should be the easiest task to do.And if one does that its impact on social and political environment would be tremendous.When children would be going to schools and patients would start getting treatment from doctors and the health facilities.It is so easy and fruitful to improve performance when the existing status is too bad.It does not require programs and projects.It only requires attention and strictness.

If the relevant ministers simply make up their minds that ghost-ism has to go,it will go.Rigorous monitoring and punishment to the guilty if practiced persistently for a few years would definitely improve the situation.In this respect,the situation in Sindh is particularly alarming and much worse than it is in other provinces.Ironically,it is a common knowledge that the delinquents usually have political patronage.In that case,this would require personal attention and involvement at the highest level of the provincial and federal leadership.IF and when people see and hear involvement of top leadership in such campaigns , all impression and blame of mis-governance and non-governance would evaporate. I have mentioned elsewhere the relatively much higher success of ministers in India than has been the case here.The case of Lalloo Parasad is particularly revealing and encouraging.

And combined with this,if even modest efforts are made towards improving service quality, a lot of improvement can result.I do not mean elitist type of high quality.I mean only functional improvements.There is quite some oversight structure that already exists in case of education such as Community School Committees. These have to be revived and strengthened.In Health sector,such oversight committees may have to be introduced.

Parvez Musharraf's inaugural speech on APML

2010-10-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

Parvez Musharraf delivered his inaugural speech, announcing foundation of APML and joining the same, in his typical authoritarian tone and style. Perhaps on the issue of style, he could not help it even after living in London for more than two years observing how politicians speak. However we will deal with more substantial issues.

Having ruled this country for so long, it was disappointing to find his level of ignorance on some of the fundamental problems and issues. For example, he repeatedly said that we had abundant water. However, the data and facts on which there is unanimity and consensus among experts and other knowledgeable people within and outside Pakistan, that Pakistan is short of water. By no measure ,it can be said that Pakistan is abundant in water.Water is one of the most serious and critical issues of the country.Pakistan is mostly arid,with very limited rain fall . We rely on just one river ,most water of which originates from outside Pakistan under the control of others.Whatever water is there either comes in the form of floods and drought conditions.Increasing population pressure is worsening the situation by the day.So where is this guy, his military training and subsequent rule-nothing could have educated him about the countries vital issues.

Similarly ,he spoke of the abundant energy resources which I agree there are and remain unutilised.However,it was his government which caused major problems in this sector.It was in his period that Chinese offer , and a very reasonable and competitive and cost effective offer,was rejected on Thar coal.A big Chinese company had spent more than two years in Thar desert ,prepared its feasibility study and made the offer,which if allowed to be implemented , would have produced enough cheap electricity from domestic Thar coal , to obviate load-shedding and tariff increases.WAPDA files and media coverage are there to verify what I have just mentioned.Where was he busy with to let this happen.Chinese were so incensed that they did not come back on this issue and refuse to do so till today.It is highly unlikely that western companies would enter Thar desert due to a variety of problems ,including the anti-coal environmental policies in the West. Reportedly even World Bank has withdrawn from a technical assistance project on Thar coal among criticism for funding coal projects.

Dependence on oil started from his period and gas supplies started dwindling in his period. It was due to his vendetta and egotistic and knee-jerk policies and campaign in Balochistan ,that further Oil and Gas exploration activity remains suspended and may remain so for quite a long period.He is not repentant. He still uses the same vocabulary of using power to solve political problems and vowed again to ' crush' political forces in Balochistan.

No single MW was added to the electrical grid in his period.And no investment in energy either.He denies that charge ,saying: Were we stupid to not have invested in Electricity? Politeness prevents us from responding to this kind of question.He made false promises of opening Langar in every Union Council . Some kind of a Manna Salwa , as the government of Punjab had to close down its subsidised Tannoor programme due to lack of resources , not to talk of Langars.

He spoke of Local Governments and the media and perhaps rightly claimed credit for innovation and development in these areas.Our provincial politicians have not yet been able to shun their skepticism and antagonism towards local governments which remain dysfunctional in all the provinces , some due to pure egotistic reasons and penchant for direct and personal rule and some due to ethnic issues.

Parvez Musharraf lamented about many problems and issues and criticized but hardly offered any solution or his approach to solve such problems.In an inaugural speech,one expected some new thinking. Only a few days ago,he may have heard the speech of the younger brother of David Miliband propounding a new vision for the Labor Party his country and its people.We have much more severe problems and our leaders so moribund. Musharraf talked about the poor and poverty ,but had hardly any proposal in this respect.He complained that the rich benefit from the laws and only the poor get punishment under it.On most issues he said or implied that he was right when he was in power and would like to do more in that direction.One wonders if he would imprison more CJs this time?He would trample upon the constitution again and disfigure it?He would commit the like of excessive violence on Lal Masjid type operations again ?He would indulge in arbitrary killing of more Baloch leaders again to compound the problems in that province once again? He did not talk about any reforms including land reforms or taxing the landlords or increasing the government revenue by bringing in untaxed incomes in the net. any thing new,he opened the Pandora box of 1939 vs 1940 resolution and spoke about new provinces,which would bring the dormant issue in the limelight and further controversy in this respect.

However there is a lesson for all democratic political parties in Pakistan especially the big ones.Parvez Musharraf is attracting the educated middle class , which has almost been disenfranchised by the political system and the parties.PML and PPP should create more space for educated middle classes in their leadership ranks and as well as down the line.Had they done so , Musharraf would have been buried in political debris.

If Musharraf poses any threat to some one,it is for Nawaz Sharif.It is Musharraf who can unite all factions of Muslim League except PML(N) or it is Nawaz Sharif,if he shows leadership,can unite all factions except APML.The ball is in Nawaz Sharif's court?

Opposition should learn its ropes ?

2010-09-30T12:59:00.001-07:00

This time the opposition in Pakistan has conducted itself much better than ever before.I has not colluded with the establishment in trying to oust the government in power prematurely,despite temptations and difficult circumstances.It is not an easy job to be a good democratic opposition.One has to criticize the government to keep it on track and yet refrain from derailing the system by causing despondency with the system among the people.It is a tight rope walking.Imbalance and error is quite likely ,but if it is even-handed it can be useful and constructive.

PML(N) and its top leader Nawaz Sharif have suffered enough under military dictatorship to call for it again.However they have to contest elections after three years and would like to defeat PPP.It appears that they have adopted a policy of supporting PPP government to a bear minimum so as to be able to save the system and yet continue to oppose and blacken the face of their opponents enough so as to defeat them in elections.No body can perhaps condemn this as an election tactic . But elections are far off. One need not be in election campaign all the time.

Serious debate should take place on policies and issues and counter proposals offered .There should be a constructive dialogue through media and assembly processes.Unfortunately PML or any other opposition parties have not fared well on this count.They are only making general statements that they are not happy with the state of governance and that it should be improved.How? there isn't much meat or substance on it.As a face book friend lamented that no political party has a formal policy and proposal process and structure to cape with this kind of responsibility.As a result when they come to power, they do not have pre-thought of policy and programme and become dependent on bureaucracy.The concept of shadow cabinet or think tanks has not found roots.It is high time that something meaningful is done in this respect by the political party.

Their real opponents in politics-the military-men- do it all the time through their training programs and institutions.Under the cover of learning about the country's problems,many trainee senior officers nurse ambitions of assuming civilian responsibilities of heading some big corporations. Look how quickly General Naqvi came up with his vision of local government and succeeded in building a formidable system. Our political parties having rejected the concept of their predecessors , could not make up their mind on the changes and adjustments required.There are similarly other issues.Normally no party has on its roll sufficient number of experts and specialists to assume ministerial responsibilities in core areas.

The common trend is to keep a core group of supporters and loyalists and even discourage general membership drive,lest the party is taken over by the outsiders ?We have emphasized elsewhere, the need of broadening the political base and strengthening political parties in terms of membership,organisation and processes.We would counsel here that serious parliamentary process be put to practice both by government as well as the opposition , especially in the wake of the terribly destructive floods , terrorism and other serious problems with which the country is beset.

Role of Intelligence Agencies in Democracies

2010-09-29T02:59:00.000-07:00

Intelligence activity within and abroad is a legitimate and essential state function.It is shear information and data collection ,studying of trends and analysis.Information is to be acquired perse .One doesn't know what information would be useful,although broad direction and areas are prioritized.

Excesses and over-stepping and machinations have been widely reported.These are short-lived deviations in stable democratic societies.FBI and CIA's role in cold war,Vietnam and McCarthyism periods have been well reported.It has been alleged that in those periods MI5 and CIA had made major inroads into such veritable media institutions as BBC,The Economist of London,Times and Newsweek.Such interventions are often and almost always subtle and discrete.

When there is polarization and transition in a society , various state instruments and institutions get involved in this.Information is power and unbridled power is corrupting.The function has a great potential of misuse and abuse,both institutionally and otherwise.Such agencies themselves can become an underground political party of sorts.In Pakistan,due to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the subsequent proxy war,intelligence agencies became ideologised if not politicized altogether due to the heavy religious and ideological content of the training system of the" Afghan Jihad".General ZiaulHaq used it abundantly for personal political power.

In Pakistan, Army Generals have been frequently finding justification for abruptly undoing constitutional governments and prolonging their personal rule.They have actively used intelligence agencies for this purpose ,covertly and overtly and unashamedly.State and government and national and personal political interests became all too mixed up.Even otherwise,it often requires quite a sophistication to differentiate the two during the heat of activity.It is a tight rope walk and not to talk of intentional misuse and abuse.

In a country where internal and external security has acquired close interface to the extent of almost eliminating the difference , the task of separating national interest from the vested interest becomes very difficult,when military leaders intentions and ambitions are ambivalent.

In a highly polarized society suffering from such instability and threat, objective intentions and personal ambition gets mixed up and overlap.It becomes difficult to abstain.Intelligence agencies therefore have to prepare themselves for any eventuality and thus a rationale for what they allegedly do.

However,the agency mission can get crowded due to such widespread roles and responsibilities.Lack of focus may reduce operational efficiency and effectiveness.Failure to contain terrorism may be a related phenomenon.In the Us no major terrorist incident has taken place after 9/11.In Germany and Japan,in the post war period,many such terrorist groups had been neutralized by their national agencies.A joint campaign and dialogue ended Northern Ireland issue.In our case,no amelioration seems to be insight which is highly perturbing and demoralizing for the nation.

In this background,the responsibilities of the leadership of these agencies become very onerous and critical.Personal promotion and welfare often requires unbridled and manifest loyalty and support.There are unwritten rules and traditions.Nothing can possibly done without the commitment of the top brass of Pakistan Army.Apparently present leadership does not seem to have political ambitions.This may be the time to bring about some balance and adjustments in the working of the agencies.Training and motivation system must emphasize respect for the law and human rights.

In all democratic societies , major intelligence agencies(Mi5,MI6,CIA,FBI etc) report to the civilian set up and governments and are generally not a part of military.It does not mean that liaison and coordination and cooperation does not exist with the military.I the Us there is a class of civilians who almost act as discretely as their military counterparts.They are issued security clearance of varying scales allowing them access to secrets,installations and interactions.In Pakistan ,reportedly even retired generals are considered security risk. What I mean to say is that , talking of America,those civilians are different. We may also benefit from such traditions and practices.

In Pakistan , attempts to bring ISI under Ministry of interior were nipped in the bud. All political interference in the past has always come from this agency.On the other hand in our chaotic political scene, it may be too risky to entrust such sensitive functions of strategic intelligence to civilian domain where the systems have yet to acquire maturity and stability.A mid way out could be to take away some sections from ISI and transfer these to IB and make the latter more effective and assertive.And let ISI perform strategic intelligence under army.Some genuine thinking has to be done in this respect which has to come out internally from these agencies themselves than being an external imposition which would would be resisted.

Reform is due.It can be done without sacrificed operational aims and activities.In fact reforms would strengthen national security which is the objective. against misuse of power for pursuing personal aims of friends,relatives and clients should be built in.It has often been found that agency personnel misuse their official capacity in sorting civilian petty issues.Internal pre and post audit of activities,parliamentary oversight and some sort of internal judicial type clearance procedure should be instituted.

Outside criticism should be objective and careful.Irresponsible comments unnecessarily generate antagonism,fear and nervousness.Reform can be induced and encouraged through dialogue among the parties..Leadership should create opportunities for such dialogue with political parties,civil society and the media in an open and structured manner. We have by now quite a number of retired generals in politics,media and civil society who know the story of both the sides.Let them know that it is not always so dirty and there is a national purpose.

However,tinkering with the system can wait till some normalcy and stability returns.But minds can always remain open and working.Discussion and debate in this respect should create consensus which is vital for a sustainable reform effort.

Corporate governance of large public sector companies-the double board system

2010-09-28T03:44:00.000-07:00

In Germany and other European countries,there is a 2-boards system for corporate management of companies exceeding a certain size.Rationale being,broader risk management,transparency and accountability and catering to the stake-holders and not just share-holders.There are two boards;one board of directors as we find in Pakistan and elsewhere where Anglo-Saxon model is practiced ; the other called Board of Supervisors or Supervisory Board.Board of directors is subordinate to the Board of Supervisors.Supervisory Board(BoS) has a chairman of the Board and several members.At least two of the BOS members are to be independent,not belonging to or associated with the company or share-holders.Normally consumer associations,civil society or university professors are inducted/elected in the general meeting as independent members.BOS and BOD are supposed to act together.BoS is concerned with broad policy guidelines,risk management,major contracts and audit.BoD is responsible for day to day operational management of the company under a chief executive(CEO).Lately both models have been converging;single boards powers being more circumscribed and receiving varying levels of external oversight;and BoS's diffused power system and consultative process shortened in the interest of efficiency and quick management.

My proposal is to try this system of two-boards in Pakistan in large public sector companies .We have seen the results of single board managed companies:mounting losses ,corruption ,falling level and quality of service etc.Take PIA,Railways,Pakistan Steel, WAPDA,PEPCO,National Bank of Pakistan ,OGDC etc.Under the current style of management, the CEO has unbridled powers of Black and White,who is manipulated from behind by controlling ministries.If CEO manages to keep the ministry happy,he is not asked many questions and is free to do all kind of nepotism,and corruption etc.Some powerful CEOs have direct line with the chief executive,Pm or President of the country and are immune from ministry's control either.Board members are only part-time and either have full tome jobs elsewhere or are board members of numerous organisations earning fee and other formal and informal advantages such as misuse of official vehicles,travel and leverage in appointments of personnel.

BoS ,in case of large public sector corporations can bring external and independent oversight,transparency and control over powerful individuals of the board and the CEO.The stakes involved in organisations like PIA and Railways are too much and too many.It is worth examining the viability of such a system in our circumstances.We need not copy the whole system in Toto and can and should make suitable adjustments to the German model.We have seen that in the US and other Anglo-Saxon countries,the supremacy of the CEOs has brought in many problems of recklessness and lack of transparency giving rise to financial crashes.Public sector is going to remain in Pakistan for a long time despite efforts of privatization.Hence the need of some innovation in respect of corporate governance.

Corruption requires a long term sustained effort and solution

2010-09-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

Today there is a hue and cry over corruption.There are those who have other aims, and corruption is just a scapegoat for them.They want to weaken democracy and would noy let democratic traditions take root in the country.There are others well-meaning but naive citizen who are fed up of bad governance ,but their patience seems to have run out at a wrong time;too late or too early.Too late,because it should have been demanded during the long reign of Musharraf regime who had all the time in the world to improve governance; too early because democratic dispensation is too young of 2 years only.

People should understand that only a democratic system has been revived which has a potential to bring change and improvement over time.It is not a social revolution which has undone the forces of status quo and vested interest.It is only through the power of vote and successive cleansing through elections that one can hope cleaning the body politic of the country.

Pakistan today has many challenges, the biggest being of law and order, terrorism,dislocation of people and the economy caused by the floods etc. All fronts cannot and should not be opened at the same time.Those who want treatment,change,healing and improvement, should also look at the capacity of the patient to undergo multi operations.Hence some patience must be shown both by the people as well as the leaders.

There was corruption long before Mr.Zardari, and there will be long after him , from Molvi ZiaulHaq to Mr.Clean Musharraf.For years ,Pakistan is on the list of one of the most corrupt countries of the world.Poverty,inappropriate legal system , colonial style governance and a host of many other factors are responsible for it.It has quite deep roots in Pakistan.It is systemic and systematic.The corrupt are used to to living beyond means.As against 8000 NRO cases, more than a million corrupt officials should be there having well-entrenched and comfortable and stable operations.It would be wrong to assume that if one person at the very top is removed ,corruption would go away. It has been personally observed by many insiders and outsiders ,that having an honest boss at the top is not enough.I have seen many police chiefs who were extremely honest personally ,but could make no dent on police corruption.There were many very honest chairmen of CBR ,none of them could reduce corruption.There are so many retired justices and chief justices of the high court and the supreme court who were impeccably honest.Did they or could they including the existing ones, manage to reduce corruption in judiciary.The answer is no.It is the bottom of Pakistan which is corrupt and may be the top.

President Asif Zardaris ' cases admittedly are not being helpful for democratic stability these days.There are other complications that may develop with premature toppling of Sindh leadership.So many Sindh leaders have been killed and dethroned.There are nationalists and separatists who are waiting for their turn.There is trouble in the two other provinces.Let us be patient,objective and practical about things politic.Rome was not built in a day.

What has happened as a result of activism and bickering and calls for improvements in governance and performance. has happened today is that the Troika's standing has been revived and strengthened and not of democracy , where their is no Troika.There is P.M. and the parliament.ZiaulHaq kept assuring Bhutto , although he was only letting the opportunity mature and acted when he felt comfortable.If civilians do not act responsibly and do not put their act together,democracy would suffer again.It was during dictatorship that CJ was manhandled and locked in his house.It is democracy which brought him back.

Pakistan Meteorological Department being a Ministry of Defence entity ?

2010-09-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

It may surprise many,but it is true that Pakistan Meterological Department(PMD) is part of the Ministry of Defence.What direct relevance is there of weather with matters of war and peace should be known to those who put that department where it is now.Perhaps nowhere in the World is this department associated with the military or Defence except for antiquated regimes like North Korea and Mayanmar.In 19th century century days of Clausewitz ,weather data may have a had strategic value requiring security and secrecy.Today in the age of satellites and international weather modelling ,there is hardly any notion of sensitivity about this data.

But why should one bother about where a department is located hierarchically, so long such an association does not cause any problem in its functioning ,output and liaison with the users.There is an implication and a serious one.Due to being a MoD installation,there has always been an aura of secrecy about it. PMD has been found wanting in disseminating the data with the required facility and readiness.There is always some hesitation and number of questions asked and forms to be filled to get simple meteorological data which everywhere is available abundantly on the net without charge.Now bureaucracy has discovered another convenient device of hiding behind user charges and have started charging discouragingly high commercial charges for the data.It may be awkward to call the data to be sensitive and easy to deny and discourage access through demanding payments.And then making payments is not easy.You have to get an account number from the department,go to the State Bank of Pakistan ,make the payment,repeat the process if there is some discrepancy and the cycle goes on.Similarly FBS does with its data.They hardly earn any money and contribute towards financial sustainability,but manage to discourage data use and development.And in case of PMD,save the so called," sensitive' data.The consequence is that many scientific,economic and environmental applications that could have been developed and published could not be done. A number of which I can readily cite.Most EIA applications involving air pollution such as of power plants cannot be done because of the data restrictions.Expensive software like AERMOD has been made free by other countries,but for the ready availability of data.Flood modelling and water inundation cannot be made online because of restrictions on GIS.A lot of economic analysis is not undertaken on various regions of the country because CENSUS data is not made available in the required format or even made available online.A lot of flood information and analysis and forecast of flood flows could have been made available to the public in the form of flood maps,but for such restrictions esp on GIS.

In the case of PMD and its role in flood forecasting and organisational interfacing with the user departments,the jury is still to be out.The net result has been , a lack of coordination among the relevant organisations.Did PMD's special status a MoD entity prevent or discourage readily interacting directly with other departments or it had to go via?these questions would be and should be reviewed at the earliest opportunity.In any case PMDs association with the MoD and its secretive behavior is an anachronism which must change.It should be reorganized along open lines and appended to Ministry of Science and Technology or MINFAL .PMD itself should not have too much of a say in it, as they may not be objective about it due to the real estate advantages that come with MoD affiliation.

And lastly appending civilian institution to defence sector has many disadvantages,the most important being the budgetary issues.Defence expenditure unnecessarily becomes high and bulky reflecting poorly in political terms inviting undeserved criticism and hostility.Genuine requirements of Defence sector are too many and do not justify further agglomeration.

Pakistan Meteorological Department being a Ministry of Defence entity ?

2010-09-27T05:49:00.000-07:00

w.It is too catastrophic to ponder over.

Introducing reforms in the banking sector

2010-09-25T02:06:00.000-07:00

Banking sector unduly prospered in the reign of Musharraf-Aziz Qureshi.In order to get acclaim and recommendations from powerful financial lobby,national and international(it is well integrated),it is found essential by illegitimate regimes pursuing temporary bonanza and ratings,to patronize and unduly benefit this sector.Result being buoyancy in banking and purely speculative stock exchange.International press and media starts publishing photos and shower praise.Often ratings improve mostly because of the psychological factors.Boom is brought to be followed by a subsequent bust as has happened in the past and also most recently.Although the recent bust has been related with international factors, while it is also true that slowdown had already set in by 2005.You can only go so far by superficial laissez-fair and by utilizing earlier installed capacities and investments.Why is the boom not sustainable? Perhaps the bust is implicit in the boom?

Hot capital attracted by a purely speculative market goes away at the slightest indication ,robbing the small investors of their investments by causing planned and unplanned crashes.Stock markets based on long term investments and yields may be of some benefit to the economy,contributing to the welfare of investing public and creating jobs and economic activity.

If there is an improvement in the performance of the financial sector,the interest rates should have come down along with the cost of intermediation. Lending rates hover around 18-20%,while the deposit rates seldom exceed 10 %.This is among one of the highest bank margin ,indicative of underdeveloped and inefficient financial and banking sector.It discourages both borrowing and deposits and only encourages bankers.No wonder banks in this country have earned huge profits. The artificial boom, call it free-for- all , caused distortions in banks factor market.Ordinary run of the mill managers started demanding and managed to get impossible salaries.After all the loot had to be shared.It was shared by their patrons,banks and the employees.Net losers being the depositors and the economy.

This is the time to correct the excesses of Musharraf regime and bring in some real competition in the sector so that the lending rates come down ,removing one of the major stumbling blocks in the competitiveness of Pakistani exports ,causing trade gap ,foreign borrowing and more inflation.However Pakistan interest rates are not high due to inflation,as the deposit rates are comparatively low.It is the bank margin that makes interest rates high ,I must say,at the risk of being nauseatingly repetitive.There is no need to be disruptive and rash.Some adjustments and reforms can definitely cause improvements without rocking the boat.A high level committee of the stake holders incorporating some genuine reform and socially oriented intellectuals and professionals should be formed to address the required changes.

Ten Commandments for the government in the aftermath of Floods

2010-09-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

There are widespread demands of improving governance performance. It appears that some major policy steps and reforms package may have to be launched courageously to assuage concerns in this respect.All policy reforms of any significance carry risks of annoying and even antagonizing some sector or group.Those risks have to be taken.The risks in not taking the measures and appear to be doing something meaningful are probably more .

These are my humble submissions to the Government of Pakistan , especially in the aftermath of the floods,which would have been required to be implemented even before the floods.The list could have been longer,but has been kept brief.More will follow in this series:

0)The most sacrosanct principle and objective should be to survive and let the democratic government to complete its term for the first time in the history of Pakistan..Fighting for it in itself is a respectable motto.Any conspiracy against a Sindh leadership party would be injurious to national fabric and unity.

00)Encourage Americans to depart from Afghanistan as an only peaceful ending to terrorism in due course,despite possible prodding for the opposite from certain quarters, to keep the US in.These are the people who want to have cake and eat it too.Do not listen to them.Keep trying for a Marshal Plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan.Involve Afghans in the process.There should be no hurry for a break-through with India.Let them wait for Nawaz Sharif.

1)Maintain and pursue the politics of inclusion,reconciliation and consensus ,taking the partners along. Pursue the same within as well.

2)Do not borrow unnecessary confrontation from the powerful institutions.

3)Revive local governments( setting an example in Sindh),even if with lesser powers and adjustments for LGs , preferably with the consensus of stake-holders , and encourage provincial governments elsewhere to do the same.

4)Tax(on Income) the agricultural landlords holding 100 acres or more.

5)Launch some significant initiative on Land Reforms and Land Distribution.Introduce land co-operative schemes.

6)Introduce and pursue jobs creating economic policies supporting SMEs and micro enterprises.Large Industrial sector has very little room for growth in the current national and international trade and competition regime,as has also been indicated by recent data.

7)Do not fall into the trap of extractive taxation policies and so called documentation.However do barely enough to barely satisfy IMF boys.These policies would scuttle growth and job creation especially among the poor.

8)Revive Ration Card scheme of the 1960s(free or cheap ration) for flood victims and for the others for cheap rates from the utility stores.

9)Introduce Aqua fishery(cage) for flood areas and coastal areas of Sindh and Balochistan.

10)Pay attention to Energy Sector:fast track Thar Coal with Chinese with a deal of 5000 MW;solve hydro royalty issue of KP ala Indian model of 12% free electricity.

11)Bring meaningful reforms in the exploitative Banking sector,bringing lending interest rates and banks margins down , and balance the lopsided free for all brought in by Musharraf and his minions.No wonder all kinds of banks have been coming in for a small economy seeing huge profits.

Energy sector has a potential to drown Pakistan

2010-09-24T01:26:00.000-07:00

Last oil price hike was among one of the major factors of devastating Pakistan's economy.What will another hike do is any body's guess.Great risk lies in there.Our dependence on oil is increasing despite such impending and known risk.Almost all power plants that have come on stream recently run on oil;more are to come.Domestic oil production is not increasing,despite some potential.Gas production is going down and in the process of being used up.New exploration and discoveries are hampered due to political and law and order problems in Balochistan and elsewhere.Despite Balochistan package and other palliatives and offers.political situation in Balochistan has only worsened.And do not think that only military can solve this problem.It can only make it worse.

There is no serious break through on Thar Coal despite great potential.It is difficult to imagine for outsiders like us as to what stalls progress on Thar coal.Probably Sindh has overplayed its card of provincial autonomy assuming exclusive control over an issue that has many interfaces.And now it is appearing to come close to a failure.Some new initiative is required to cause a breakthrough.Now floods would be a good excuse for every inefficient entity to hide under its cover.On the other hand federal bureaucracy,barring some settlement on "joint development", seems to be searching for options except Thar coal.Chinese have been prevailed to supply more nuclear reactors,which are three times more expensive in capital costs and associated with many other hurdles and political difficulties.We must be clear in our minds that only Chinese can possibly develop Thar coal in the remote and scorching heat of Thar desert.No other country or company can handle the risks involved in this size of the project.You can sign nth MOUs ,nothing would happen.As a token World Bank has withdrawn support among criticism of financing dirty coal.I hope we manage to put our act together before it is too late and financing coal is stopped altogether in the nearing prospects of solar power.The solution may lie in awarding a 5000 MW project to Chinese to include all the infrastructure development costs.Chinese may agree to it on suitable terms.

I heard a Sindhi nationalist leader spitting venom on hydel power and Kalabagh dam,despite being drowned in flood water.What more rationale and justification can be given of excess water to be stored in dams than these horrific floods in which 45 MAF(million acre feet) of water has overflown in a few days as opposed to a normal flow of 100 MAF over the entire year.The combined storage of all the dams proposed to be built is smaller than this flow.It is hoped that barring these Abujehls people in Sindh in general are not going to block dams any further.If they do they would be drowned again and again and resultantly the whole of Pakistan.Dams have long been used throughout to store water and prevent floods.Americans,Chinese,Brazilians ,Indians and others have done it successfully.There is no colonialism about it.Let us hope that sense prevails ultimately.

And now the pricing.GOP has been subsidising electricity amounting to Rs !50 billion per year.It has not been able to pay it however ,along with the non-payment of electricity bills by the provincial governments.This has given rise to circular debt of Rs 200 billion.It does not get paid off ,as more amount is added to it successively.And IMF is also requiring to do away with these subsidies.If these subsidies are withdrawn,along with the uniform subsidized tarriff,electricity rates in Sindh,KP and Balochistan would increase.In Punjab electricity rates are expected to go down? Why? Is it another so called" machination from Punjab" as many nationalists would be akin to term it? Not really.the story is as follows.About 25 % of electricity is lost in T&D losses, a large part of it is theft.This T&D loss(theft mostly) is not uniform through out Pakistan.In Punjab,it is the lowest around12% in northern and central Punjab and 15% in southern Punjab.Everywhere else,these losses are in the range of 35-45%.Currently these excessive losses are hidden and averaged out in uniform tariff.Without electricity subsidy borne out by the GOP,every province and user would pay for its losses.Thus Punjab having lesser losses would end up in lower tariff and the opposite will happen to the users elsewhere.

As it is electricity is expensive and kind of unaffordable for most of the people and even businesses,a pandora box will open up.The issue may not end up in terms of the aforementioned cool and cold logic.The issue is far more complicated.KP will argue that you take away our(it is not theirs' solely) cheap hydro electricity at one Rupee a unit and sell it back to us at 6-7 Rupees.In Balochistan cost of gas fired electricity is Rupees 4 per unit and similarly Sindh produces a lot of gas for electricity production.What is the way out?Balochistan's consumption is quite low and could be jangled in a variety of ways.In Sindh ,problems would be further compounded due to KESC vs rest of Sindh.More thinking is required on this.

However KP issue can be at least partly resolved by resolving the Hydel Profit/Royalty of Tarbela Dam produced electricity.No permanent solution has been implemented.Despite practical suggestions proposed by this scribe some 18 months back.My suggestion is simple.Give 12% of Tarbela generated electricity to KP free as royalty or alternatively pay 12% royalty at CPPA whole sale price.Both are more or less equivalent,transparent and simple to understand and not mired by the complicated calculations of AGN Kazi.It is being done in India, a country not disliked by Sarhadi Gandhi to say the least?Elsewhere the royalties are lesser.This maximum should be acceptable to the government of KP and even the other distractors.A n early decision should be made in this respect in consultation with the stakeholders.These royalties should go towards adjustments of tariff increases.I would tend to support 12% free electricity which has a larger public appeal and would be politically attractive.

Finally energy conservation and efficiency issues should receive government support and attention.A unit saved is a unit produced and even worth more due to environmental reasons.In order to remain out of technical complexity,let me propose here to reduce the demand of air-conditioning to a more acceptable level. Two or even three piece suits have become unduly popular in Pakistan government and business circles, requiring chilling while the outside temperature may be 45 degree C or more.This is awfully expensive.Instead Bu-shirts should be promoted,as one Japanese P.M.reportedly proposed for his country in the context of rising cost of energy.GOP has already taken steps towards reducing Ac loads.More should be done.How about reverting back to Kurta Shalwar ala-Zia period.I am not a Zia supporter as is widely known,but would not mind adopting and proposing better policies.

Improving governance performance:the case of Lalloo Prasad

2010-09-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

Often it is argued that in Parliamentary democracy,ministers come from their districts through popular votes.They are often not well versed with the ministerial tasks they are entrusted with.Consequently a case is made either for the Presidential system in which ministers are not elected but are selected by the president usually on the basis of expertise cum political association.

Or military dictators emerge offering expert ministers as a better alternative.Can ministers deliver in the parliamentary system while lacking in expertise?The case of Lalloo prasad,the former flamboyant Chief Minister of Bihar province in India, proves that ministers can deliver.Lalloo turned around Indian Railways recently,turning a loss giving entity into a profitable organisation and that without increasing the fares.In India ministers have been delivering well over the years despite the so-called cacophony and rambling of democracy.It has been marching ahead on fast track over the last decade with a growth rate of 10% plus as opposed to our boom-bust economy artificially primed by military dictators which often runs into snags thereafter.

There is a strong case for our ministers to improve performance.After all they are a motley crowd of a century plus permitting build up of expertise and specialization.Having large cabinets is often a need of fledgling democracies garnering and building a strong base of support for the government.Only a minister is added.Often the administrative departments are already there

irrespective of a separate minister.If ministers behave frugally,and the whole system is reorganized on frugality and cost consciousness,it can be affordable.So the problem is not with having a large cabinet,it is with the general culture of profligacy.The most frugal government expenditure system is of the U.S.High ranking US officials are found travelling in "tubes" in Geneva .Their Pakistani counterparts often are provided with rented Mercedes.

Similarly much criticized foreign trips and travel could be made more cost effective ,if no extra payments are made other than a frugal daily allowance, and embassies are forbidden to afford extra cost.All legitimate costs can be affordable and justified,if there is efficiency and output.Without output and performance,even a zero cost would be a liability.So buck up Pakistani parliamentary ministers.Introduce frugality,innovation and efficiency.As Iqbal said rightly and slightly too optimistically: sabaq parh phir adalat ka shujaat ka,Liya jaega tujh se kam dunya ki imamat ka.

List of Blogs

2010-09-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

A. Introduction

B. FLOODS

Flood relief:Solar Disinfection of Water

Flood Relief:clean drinking water and PCSIR products

Flood mitigation: Planning and community participation

Floods;lack of a communication protocol

Review of FFC and Flood Management System

Flood dividends

Floods and the mighty Indus

Flood Compensation

Risk Management: floods and businesses

Flood Forecasting and Management System in Pakistan

Flood Management & Map Phobia in Pakistan

Floods forecasts and Emergency preparedness

Flood victims: Emergency support vs sustainability

Floods: Emergency Shelter and Toilets (continued)

Floods: Emergency Shelters and toilets concept and costs

Floods and Dams: the right time for discourse and debate

Floods: water accord and discord in Pakistan

Floods: irrigation system, abiana and income tax on agricultural incomes?

Inadequate and delayed relief assistance and the potential for anarchy and destabilisation

C. LAND REFORMS

Land and Housing Reforms: Innovations and opportunities due to the floods.

Land (zar, zameen and zan) is one of the THREE.

Is Land Reform off the Menu?

Afghan Mineral Resources for Regional Development.

Land Ownership and Utilization in Pakistan

Land Reforms: Restructuring Agriculture and Political Power

Balochistan; Insurgency and Land Reform

D. EDUCATION AND RESEARCH

University Research: Water & Environment

University Research: the Floods

University Research IX :Conclusion

University Research X: the way forward

University Research VIII: the case of HEJ and PCSIR

University Research VII: the antithesis

University Reseach VI; Agriculture

University Research V: the incubators

University Research IV:Bio-sciences

What an engineering university should be doing at a minimum

University Research III: Ultimately Public Sector Universities would have to earn some money

University Research:relevance ,cost-effectiveness and not elitism
University Research II: Merger of Ministries of Edu and Science
E. POLITICS AND GOVERNANCE

The need and rationale for a Water Policy

Pakistan Drinking Water Policy

Mr. President (Musharraf) : What you should be doing?

Book Review/Comment:Memories of a soldier; 1947, before, during , after

Dichotomy of Political Power: Persecution or Performance and Capability?

Why Pakistan Railways is collapsing?

Floods and the Local Governments

F. CASE OF THE POOR

Is beggary a menace to be curtailed?

Insuring the poor.

G. FOOD AND FISHERIES IN THE CONTEXT OF FLOODS

Fishery cage aquaculture for sustainable Livelihood for the poor,landless and flood victims

Community based fisheries management

Floods Recovery: land reform, water rights, in-land fishery and white revolution

H. Appendix

· Pakistan's Development and Energy Challenges: Two new books by Akhtar Ali.

New Book: Pakistan's Development Challenges: federalism, security and governance.

Managing Pakistan in the aftermath of the floods

2010-09-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

Floods have devastated Pakistan directly and indirectly.Nealy one-fifth of people and area have been affected.Human, cattle,crops,homes,schools and infrastructure and what not have been destroyed.Damage and loss assessment is yet to be completed,however,there are varying estimates ranging from 11 to 45 billion US dollars.As it is Pakistan was reeling from the affects of two or more successively bad years due to international recession,oil price hike and political transition.Floods have worsened the situation further.The initial psychological and physical shock was so much that some people even doubted that Pakistan would be able to survive at all.These doubts are not new and the flood shocks have even exacerbated those.

Floods visit every community where there is a river.For centuries of human experience and history,floods have been considered a blessing which brought a new round of fertility.There used to be no fertilizers ,floods brought fertile soil along and spread it on the shore.The problem is due to the burgeoning population.In the last sixty years alone,Pakistan's population has increased manifold,mounting pressure on both rural and urban land and areas.

The intensity of floods was colossal.According to initial estimates,45 MAF(million acre feet) of water gushed out in a few days,as opposed to normal average flow of 100 MAF in one full year.This was certainly the most severe flood in the history of the land of this country.

Admittedly,floods devastation could have been much lesser,had we been a little more organised and a little less corrupt and inefficient.What a forlorn hope.Most technology to forecast floods and deal with it exists in the country but utilized with wanting efficiency.Investments in Dykes and Levees have been made over the years,but got weakened and dilapidated due to poor maintenance as a result of corruption of the irrigation department.On e of the most corrupt in a country which has the "honour" of being listed as one of the most corrupt countries of the world.Sindh has suffered much more due to this corrupt officialdom.In Sindh,doctors and teachers donot go to their workplaces and draw salaries.It is ghost schools and health facilities all over. Nationalists in Sindh would have pushed all the fault to Pakistan and its federal (punjab) government ,had Sindh not been ruling in the center and elsewhere.A separatist movement would have been launched.Thanks to the present democratic set-up.This is another reason,that many patriotic and sincere Pakistanis argue and wish that the current political dispensation should be allowed to continue and complete its full term,which it has legitimately earned,despited the purported faults and issues.Sky is not falling,it would have fallen in their absence of those who pronounced "Pakistan Khape" in a situation when they had all the power and potential to play foul.

It is not easy to run this country in these circumstances.Perhaps those who are destablising the system in the hope of coming to power through back doors donot quote appreciate it.So is the power of power.It is a mix motley crowd consisting of naive and innocent middle class professionals clamoring for reform and revolution and a less mature media led by inadequately informed anchors,some of whom clearly running their personal vendetta.In the background there always are undemocratic forces,both within and outside the establishment.The establishment established long ago by the so called," gang of four', led and left by the Governor Ghulam Mohammad.Younger people would'nt know and appreciate what I mean.

Government of the day has great responsibility to discharge despite onerous and mounting problems.For its part,it should maintain its politics of consensus despite problems and difficulties. Opposition has a difficult role and task to perform to which it has not been quite used to and for which there has not been a tradition.To maintain and support the present set up without letting them winning the next election.It is indeed a tight rope, and the chances and incentives and detractor too many to cause imbalance and a fall.Mr.Nawaz Sharif has an opportunity to live for history and not for power.He has done well uptill now and should continue doing so.He would earn more honour and respect without power than with it.He has already done so.

Fishery cage aquaculture for sustainable livelihood for the poor,landless and flood victims

2010-09-20T08:26:00.001-07:00

Fishery aquaculture has existed in Pakistan for quite sometime now.In this one literally grows fish from small fish media called fingerling,the latter being produced in hatcheries.Fishery aquaculture is, however ,quite expensive business requiring land,pond excavation,water pumps and drainage system and in some cases even expensive oxygenation.Fish feed is also to be provided.In Punjab,fish aquaculture has grown quite significantly to meet demand mostly from middle and upper classes.

In coastal areas of Sindh and Balochistan, natural fish is caught under traditional net and line method using fishing boats and trawlers.It is an open access system where Pakistani vessels have equal access under a nominal registration fee system.Fish catches and yields from the sea has bee dwindling through out the world including Pakistani coasts , creating a space and demand for other fishing techniques,one of which is fish aquaculture as discussed before.

Lately Fisheries Development Board has announced a project named Cage Fishery Development.

In this technique fish aquaculture is done in inland water bodies, open riverine or sea water in metal or plastic net cages. Because in open water,fish grown by fish farmer is free to go away otherwise,it has to be caged.With cages many individual and groups can pursue aquaculture in a common water resource,otherwise one has to excavate his pond or may have to contract or lease the whole water body.

Cage fish aquaculture is relatively a new technology developed only since 1980-90s.Highest development and production of cage fish culture has taken place in China,where demand for nutritional protein is high due to an expanding population base.In Nepal ,cage fish culture has been introduced to provide livelihood to displaced communities of a dam project.In Indonesia and Thailand ,Tsunami victims have been supported through in-cage fishery aquaculture initiatives.Most recently,Clinton's foundation Global Initiatives has launched a similar project for Haiti Earthquake victims and has reportedly been received well by the stake holders.

Currently the initiative launched by Fisheries development Board(FSB) is geared towards larger projects and investments.FSB has created a network of facilities to promote fish production through this method.The in-cage fishery aquaculture is feasible both for large scale as well as at micro and individual level.FSB and provincial governments would be strongly advised to launch a small scale initiative for the poor farmers,rural poor and the landless peasants and now the flood victims.A package consisting of 4-5 fish cages of one cubic meter volume(one meter all sides),and monthly feed supplies and a starting stock of fingerling could be provided to the target group in all parts of the country in flood areas and in coastal Balochistan.Water bodies may be allocated to farmers groups and associations or on individual basis along with the aforementioned inputs.A training and demonstration programme should also be launched .Chinese government may be requested to provide assistance in this respects.They have a lot of experience in this and offer inputs and services at less than % prices.

This is no alternative to land reforms,in absence of which at least water bodies like rivers,canals and lakes could be leased to the poor for in-cage fish aquaculture production,which would earn them cash and as well meet the nutritional requirements.NGOs should also pay attention especially for the flood victim poor.Women who currently are at a disadvantage in the fisheries sector,because in our social and religious traditions,women do not go out on boat for fishing,in-cage fishery would provide an alternative inroad into this sector.

Community based fisheries management

2010-09-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

Fish consumption in Pakistan is one of the lowest in the world i.e.1-2 kg per capita per year bringing down nutrition levels among people to one of the lowest also.This is not a habit issue,which at best is a chicken-egg problem.This is despite , a 1000 km+ coastline and four rivers and thousands of miles of canal network.There is a tremendous potential in the sector to contribute to the livelihood of the poor , if not for boosting exports which any case robs the poor of its potential food that may be available otherwise.

Most of the coastal fishery is under open access system which is normally exploitative maximising output and profits without any regards for resource conservation,sustainability and stewardship,although there are some regulations that provide for the former with a varying level of effectiveness.If a resource is owned by a community ,it may forego consumption or injurious exploitation ,for the sake of tomorrows consumption and needs.In open access system ,it is generally free for all and no such incentives for resource conservation and stewardship or management exist ,except for some labelling systems that are in a stage of infancy.

Similar is the situation for inland fisheries resources and water bodies which are contracted out by WAPDA and provincial governments as per their domain and ownership.Except for some limited revenue,the characteristics of contractorship are the same as in the open access system.Even the puprete and potential revenues are siphone off by the corrupt bureaucracy and their politically influencial patrons.

Community base fisheries management has emerged as a viable alternative management system, although promoted more for environmental reasons than any thing else.Our focus here is to utilise this approach towards the following social and economic objectives:

1) to broaden the claim and stewardship of the poor and the landless on the resurces.

2)to dilute feudal structures and reduce dependence of the people on it.

3)to increase nutrition and income of the rural poor.

4)To increase output,efficiency,economics and resource conservation.

5)and for the time being ,contribute to the revival of rural economies after the flood disaster,with which we have dealt with in a sperate article.

However,there is a great risk in all community based systems to be hijacked by feudal vested interest through proxy and background manipulations and machinations.The very purpose of broader social and economic upliftment is gone.Commercial and administrative systems have been and are an improvement of the classical and traditional master-client system of landed interests which try to reemerge under new names of community organisations.Policy designers have to be watchful.

The opportunities of improvement are many.Small steps with continuous improvement and innovations at a broad scale in most parts of the economy can add up to bring about a major impact on the economy and well-breing of the people.The tragedy is that people seem to be losing hope and confidence that things would work out.They wait and dream and hope for a great tumultuous type of change delivered by a Messiah whose time is either gone or has yet to come.Some phony messiahs are touting themselves as the real ones. are waiting for an Islamic system , and their other brothers want to fast track the same through their suicide attacks.Some nihilists are looking forward to total destruction, so that a new order emerges from its debris.There used to be communists of the yesteryears,whose dreams were overrun by the collapse of the Soviet system.Still possibly ,the only real communists are found in Pakistan and India.Fast growth phenomenon of fascism was defeated at the alter of misconduct of Adolf Hitler,and the new proponents of it in the form of military dictators of ours have not been able to offer a panacea,except to offer themselves again and again.So there is no panacea ,magic or secret recipe for social and economic development.It comes about piecemeal,in small steps but through a continuous and sustained effort.

In Pakistan,we have been talking about various initiatives for a long time .No sizable initiative after Poultry Scheme has not been implemented.All that is done is that some demonstration projects are launched under foreign aid and through foreign consultants,without conviction or commitment.There is no follow-up and no policy and action for launching such schemes and initiatives.There is abundance of doubting thomases and skeptics for whom nothing is possible or feasible,except the continuation of their perks and benefits.On the other hands so many challenges and demands on newly elected political leaders are created that they are paralyzed in fire-fighting and so much impatience is shown as to create despondency,while military rule is tolerated for long times.People of Pakistan must understand these machinations and put their weight behind democratic political order.On the other hand,political parties should induct technicians and experts,who should remain busy in their development work without bothering about the daily political ups and downs.It is only then that a legitimate and sustainable development and improvement cycle would come into full gear.

Floods Recovery:land reform,water rights,in-land fishery and white revolution

2010-09-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

We should be coming out of floods soon,as at least in Punjab people have started returning home to start planting for the next crop.In Sindh also,people are expected to start returning.Flood victims will have to be rehabilitated ,as they have lost almost every thing;houses,cattle,food stock,plantation, crop etc.It is an extremely difficult task.Most of the affectees are small farmers and the landless poor,operating in the Kachcha areas.Next crop is to come in six months, and the affectees have to eat and survive in this period beside providing inputs to produce their livelihood.

In this article, I would like to discuss some of the options and approaches that could produce some results in near term,although may take some time,and may not be implementable immediately.However,as I have pointed out elsewhere,government(s) can utilise this calamity as an opportunity to launch some fundamental reforms in the economy and agricultural sector in Pakistan.

Let me first of all and at the first opportunity explain what is meant by "white revolution", as some readers may be concerned and nervous over the word revolution.White revolution is a term referring to the prospect and potential of very high increase in milk production in our country.For almost a decade , we are talking about the white revolution by launching innovative development and assisting programmes in the live stock sector.With more than 200,000 cattle having been lost in the floods,the dream of such a revolution seem to have receded further into

the oblivion.However, a more distributive and broad based programme could be launched by providing a pair of cattle under some loan scheme,along with a small piece of land.By some magic ,if government manages to get the money and credit from abroad and lends it to small farmer, where does the land come from.

I have discussed elsewhere the possibilities of launching land reforms,in a limited fashion,which may be politically feasible.I would not elaborate it over here,except that the Government(s) can speed up and rather broaden the land distribution programme that had been in the pipeline in Sindh,before the floods.Same can be done at much broader and wider scale in Balochistan,where only 5-6% of the countries population lives on almost 50% land mass of the country i.e., one million households vs 25 million households elsewhere.I have similarly argued for water rights for the landless from all the future irrigation network expansion of the future, and further increase in irrigation water availability.

Let us here focus on the flood water.Many water bodies in the country and especially in Sindh and Balochistan ,which had become almost extinct due to lack of water, should have been revived and rehabilitated by the excess flood water.In lower Punjab,farmers are reportedly offering higher bids for leases of these water bodies with their enhanced fishery potential.New areas with deeper land where inundation has been very high could possibly converted to new water bodies.In many countries like Bangladesh, Peru and Brazil etc aquatic fishery projects have been launched successfully in the flood plains under community based systems.

Traditionally in-land water bodies are auctioned and given out on annual contracts to often rich and well-connected contractors who try to maximize their fish catch , small artisanal fishermen from their subsistence activities.As it happens conventionally in Pakistan, a lot of money and income goes into the pockets of those awarding the contracts and their patrons.Very little income is received by the government.Provincial governments should consider awarding communal or cooperative ownership or fishing rights to nearby and traditional communities along with assistance and extension providing hatcheries and feed supplies under some credit schemes.New water bodies may be created by trapping the flood water and connecting it with river through channels.In Haiti a similar project has been launched under Clinton Global initiative,about which a film has been shown recently on CNN.A similar project could be launched in Sindh and elsewhere in the country.Through such innovative schemes and projects,one could mitigate and alleviate the disastrous consequences of floods to our people and the economy.However we must move fast, and move optimistically in a positive way,looking for wisdom and approaches from whatever directions these may be be available.Fortunately ,world today is a global village and technology and wisdom is available to meet the challenges.World community appears to be quite eager to help,if we are eager to help ourselves.

Mr.President(Musharraf):what you should be doing ?

2010-09-16T05:46:00.000-07:00

General Musharraf has formed his own party and plans to return home soon.He intends to contest elections and hopes to win as well.His announcement has been received variously ,depending on the political or social spectrum one belongs to.Baloch nationalists would want to eliminate him physically,others would want to try him in the court of law.P.M.Gilani has said that the Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudary would like to "welcome" him.Nawaz Sharif would at least like to send him back in the same manner,the former was treated.After 18th amendment,the prosecution under article six may be likely. In fact he may be tried for heinous crimes under an international war tribunal,as have been the case of other cruel dictators as, Yugoslavian and Vietnamese leaders etc..There are enough cases like Lal Masjid and Akbar Bugti case.The tradition of inviting international legal system in domestic issues has already been set in Pakistan.On the other hand , there would not be an indispensable need to return to Pakistan to take part in politics and head the party,in these days of electronic media and nearby Dubai with its new found open door policy of allowing political meetings on its land.Mr.Altaf Hussain is leading his party comfortably from London.In the past Shaheed Benazir and Nawaz Sharif have been doing the same.One only needs to arrive as a victor and not as vanquished,for the latter is treated very badly in Pakistan.

However,victory does not seem to be to0 close and the General Musharraf is already 67 , by newspaper accounts as made available by the official system , although the practice of understating ones age among the government service hopefuls is not totally unknown. A friend and Colleague of mine,once a senior bureaucrat,retired several years earlier than his elder brother,who retired as an ambassador .In the later years,the role of Nawabzada Nasrullah may be possible,if in the intervening time Musharraf does some good things.Immediately he may be able to achieve the following;

1)To provide leadership and patronage to a faction of PML-Q ,who are Siyasi Yateem these days,and whose opponent Chaudaries have problems with Musharraf.After all Chaudaries have a political history and perhaps future as well and they consider Musharraf as a spent cartridge, a disdain with which Musharraf himself used to reject his opposing colleagues.

2)He may further dilute the prospects of unification of the Muslim League factions,by adding his own faction.

3)He may embolden and revive Nawaz Sharif's claim to political leadership in the environment f polarization which Musharraf's reentry may create.

4)And not to talk of the joke he would be making of Pakistan and its politics and democracy;breaking the constitution a number of times, conducting himself in a totally dictatorial fashion and style,and in the end freely playing in the political field with impunity- an unfortunate message to the future military coup d'tat leaders-nothing would ever touch them and that they would be in merry-making always.

Why should Musharraf be trying to do what he has already done,having ruled for 11 long yaers,more than what a legitimately elected political leader would expect to achieve in his political life.Both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir got two years each of stints in power only twice and that even intermittently.His beloved Pakistan is still in trouble,despite his eleven years of political engineering and economic policies.Assuming that his claims of economic progress are correct to some extent,would we need to have him alone to repeat it.what happens when he dies?We need,it has been proved by the long years of Musharraf rule, a sustainable and legitimate system built on the rule and respect of law that delivers us from the curse of boom-bust cyclical economy.Tinkering with the economy in the short run and energizing a few sectors like construction,consumer durables and cars ,and under-investing in infra-structure and endogenous resource development,could have only worked that far as it did.Growth started dwindling and problems such as trade gap started reappearing well within his period.Why the boom if it has to bust so frequently and so early?Is it real or sustainable?So problems are not resolved for ever.You need a system and a process which Musharraf interrupted for eleven long years.But for him, a new genre of competent leadership could have emerged through several completed elections and tenures.So did his naive and selfish predecessors like General Zia And General Ayub.Musharraf did take some long term measures, which we would elaborate upon separately,building up media,establishing local governments and doing away with the colonial-style deputy commissioner system.He could have done more.And he does not want to enter for doing more.For he cannot and he will not.For example he would not be launching land reforms , as he would be needing the crutches of the land lords even more than ever before.He had the support of the most powerful institution of the country.There is no reason that army should support him now.Army supports its commanders and not spent cartridges as Musharraf loved to dub his retired colleagues,as he is retired himself now.His worth,apart from his real estate assets,would not be more than the residual brass that continues to stick around.

However,he can be worth more,if he does what is required and what is right and suitable and appropriate.He can do many things.He can think about the problems of Pakistan in the context of his own experience of power and control and come out with a recipe for Pakistan's development.He can seek the help of his former colleagues and other competent and experienced people who may be willing to extend a helping hand,should he prove to be genuine.He should publish his thoughts,exposing real enemies and difficulties that lay buried and away from people.It is the people,ordinary and not so ordinary,who are to be the ultimate hope and beneficiaries himself.Today you are a people ,just a people.In his book,he would be well advised to express repentance on what he did to the constitutional process and apologize to the nation and advise others not to repeat the same.There is no disrespect or dishonor in it.It would salvage him for history,after all at that age and experience,one would like to think how history would rate him and place him ,among heroes,ordinary or destroyers if not outright traitors.Would he do that?highly unlikely.

He can also do what Clinton and Carter are doing.They are doing it on world scale,he can do it at a lower level-at his national level.He can do what Imran Khan(but for his politics),Edhi and Agha Khan have done He may be be able to do more.Do something for educating the poor,help build bridges with India,encourage Pakistan Defence forces on being more cost-efficient and less demanding of budgetary sources.He has the credibility, contacts and experience.Many , at-least in the rightist circles in the US would oblige him.Going by his track record over the last two years,inviting hanger ons to yacht trips , networking with vested interests and what not ? He is ordinary even slightly lesser,unless he proves otherwise.

Book Review/Comment:Memories of a soldier;1947,before,during ,after

2010-09-16T04:06:00.000-07:00

Major General(retd) Wajahat Hussain , has published his memoir recently and deserves attention of thinking Pakistanis who care to think about Pakistan and its problems and potential.I may not be qualified enough to undertake review of a book written by a very senior and sincere General of Pakistan Army,but surly I can possibly make a few comments.

It is my good fortune of having had some contacts and interaction with a few very respectable personalities of Pakistan Army,purely in an intellectual context.General Wajahat is one of them and additionally,an uncle(real) of a very dear friend of mine.General Ateequrrehman,wrote such an appreciative and laudatory comment on my maiden book at that time(Pakistan's Nuclear Dilemma,1984),that I would not expect to get from a person of that stature ,all my life.General A.I.Akram wrote Foreword to the same book.General Wajahat belongs to that class of old genre"gentlemen" of liberal upbringing and outlook and intellect,which perhaps was the only reason General ZiaulHaque quietly opposed the promotion of Major General Wajahat to the rank of a Lieutinent General, as is claimed by the author and is generally known.

General Wajahat has been forthrightly candid about a number of issues,of which I would single out the following for a special mention:

1)As narrated by Brigadier Qayyum ,later Senator,Mujeeburrehman while in custody in West Pakistan,offered to a settlement within the framework of one Pakistan,and reverse the course of history,if he was made the P.M. of Pakistan.Brig.Qayyum,as disclosed by General Wajahat in this book.Qayyum says he spoke to General Hameed about this offer,who did not take it up to his boss Yahya Khan ,saying that Mujeeb has been publicly declared as a traitor by the president.Perhaps Mujeeb's offer was too late,in the context of the consensus that came to exist then in West Pakistan,that the former could not be trusted and,if in power, may create a situation for the dissolution of West Pakistan, a thesis I and many others in Pakistan tend to give credence too.

2)General Wajahat,as Air Marshal Asghar Khan, does not have many charitable words for 1965 War,which he says, ended into a stalemate with 500 square miles of territory of Pakistan occupied by India ,was fought without adequate planning and fore-thought and without thoroughly examining all and other strategic options.Pakistan Army may not like these assessments , although it has already gone soft on 6th September.There are many who donot subscribe to this view.

3)General Wajahat has tried to expose the real personality and prejudicial mind of General Ayub Khan ( and the gang of four,as he chooses to call GM,Iskender Mirza etc.) ,whom his son Captain Gauhar Ayub , is doing his best to paint a holy picture of.Prejudice,corruption and opportunism,infact,got weaved into Pakistan's public life due to the" pioneering" work of these persons.General Wajahat has done a good job of putting these people in right perspective.

4)General Wajahat rejects Kargill campaign,but has chosen to be brief about it.

Balochistan;Insurgency and Land Reform

2010-09-08T05:50:00.000-07:00

Despite serious attempts by the present PPP government including provincial autonomy as enshrined in the 18th amendment,and Balochistan Aghaze-huqooq package,public apology by President Zardari and substantial reduction in the role of security agencies,and even background engagement and negotiation with the liberationists,there is apparently no concession by the insurgents and no amelioration in the insurgency.The dialogue and engagement should continue,so that a peaceful and democratic solution is achieved at some point in time.Unfortunately GOPs ability to offer any more carrots as it has recently announced,has been seriously reduced by the recent fluid and may not recover from it in a short while.The taliban terrorism has further compounded the problems.Many interests are converging including India,Taliban,Sipah-e-sahaba and the nationalists and separatists.And GOP and the system too weak and occupied to take any drastic action.And the drastic military actions have only exacerbated the problems.

It appears that when ever the opportunity arises some long term measures may have to be taken.Following are the three possible actions that may be examined by the government:

a)creation of a new and counter elite

b) agricultural land grants to masses

c)development and colonization of the coastal area by Baloch masses and the new elite.

As colonial raj did by distributing land in reward for cooperation and bringing about a new elite, in place of freedom fighters and those who did not go and could not go along with their colonial rule and policies.There should be a lot of public land still available in Balochistan.After all,it is only 5% of country's population living in 50% of the land mass of the country.Most of it may be barren land ,so most of the distributed land was when it was distributed to the collaborators by the Raj.It is only the later irrigation network that made such land productive.Unfortunately,as it is widely alleged,most of the land grants have been given to military and bureaucracy,who came from outside Balochistan ,which painted Pakistan as a colonial power and not a rule of brothers and comrades.Local counter elite could be created by land grants 50-100 acres plus to the educated middle classes , however,little in number they may be in Balochistan. There may be about 50,000 families in this category.Their education,some personal assets and the new land tracts may contribute to the creation of new elite.The possession of land,even if not immediately profitable,may bring a social strength ,confidence and consciousness among ordinary people.In rural societies there is no respect and even rights for those who donot have land.So let us bring respect and honour to the ordinary,as a first step towards improvement.

The second component of the reform is ,which one may be inclined to dub or term as land reform,but in my view is sightly more than that, to distribute land smaller land grants among the masses, to about 500,000 families and organize those as cooperatives.Horticultural and rangeland cooperatives may be promoted through credit schemes.Both foreign and local coops may be there.Trilateral JVs of Australian,Middle-eastern and local partners may prove to be feasible and attractive from sourcing and marketing perspectives.Australians sheep industry may find a useful marketing and inventorying point in these set ups.There may be many useful and interesting ideas in this respect.But the focus should be creating economic and social opportunities to the common man of Balochistan away from the strangle-hold of the traditional elite and Sirdars.The schemes have to be small and not so lucrative by design so as to prevent creation of interests of landlords,Sirdars and the traditional elite.

One may be wondering over the water issue in all this grand drama.More storage dams are being created.All the share of Balochistan in the increase of water supply and the associated irrigation networks should go towards the proposed settlements and the reformed land.It should not benefit the traditional elite but should work for the benefit of new elite and the common man.More over adoption of conservation techniques like drip irrigation mat have to be promoted as well.We have also proposed a new system of water rights which benefits the landless and makes them partners in the new irrigation.

Thirdly,urban land clusters and town should be established on the coast,on lands having no Sirdar ownership or social and traditional influence.Residential and commercial plots should be alotted to the locals from all over Balochistan,encouraging migration of common man from Sirdari strangleholds to these towns where there is rule of law and the Pakistan state.In the past,in Gawadar all urban land went into the ownership of outsiders,although through private commercial purchases.Only landed and traditional local elite may have been benefited.Urban development of Balochistan cannot be done on private sector traditional model.Land development allotments have to be in public sector,while building activities may have private sector component.

GOP does not have resources presently.However, a few years or so may be required in studying and planning such an enterprise.these scheme should be based on bipartisan consensus including the military.A strong taboo would have to be created against exploitative interests that may pervert the whole idea in implementation.The goal has to be kept in mind:that is the creation of a new counter elite that is sympathetic to a united Pakistan , and creation of socio economic system in Balochistan independent of the traditional elite and Sirdars,who who often collude and blackmail on anti-Pakistan campaigns.

For the larger issue of country wide Land Reforms,I have already made submissions in my earlier blogs.There is a scope,however limited for land reforms throughout Pakistan .Long term planning and sustainable action is required under national consensus to implement the proposed scheme.Impulsive actions,without constructive thoughts and preparation,and only motivated by personal pique has done tremendous disservice to the national unity in the past and has only exacerbated the Baloch issue.But do we have the time?

Flood relief:Solar Disinfection of Water

2010-09-01T21:40:00.000-07:00

Take normal used mineral water bottle,remove label,wash it with whatever contaminated water that is available,fill it with contaminated water,cap the bottle,put the bottle under sun for six hours,water is disinfected.Drink it as it is or after letting it cool a bit.

Too simple and too good to be true.But it is true.I have myself done it and got it tested.My wife Dr.Meher who is a qualified and experienced physician has checked it and approves it.It is a WHO/UNICEF approved method of disinfecting water being used normally by the poor in about 30 countries of Asia,Africa and Latin America ,including India, Indonesia and Brazil.By now millions of users are using it normally and routinely.Discovered rather late in 1980s,the process is being developed and marketed by a water research institute based in Switzerland called SODIS/AWEAG.The reader can go to their website or Wiki for verifying what I am saying and getting more details about it.

The disinfecting quality of sunlight has been widely known in our society for long.Old stored clothes are usually put in sunlight by mothers and grannies for removing odour and possible infections.Scientific basis of the efficacy and working of sunlight for water disinfection is now well established through research.Ultra-violet rays of certain wave length have been known to have disinfectant qualities.UV(320-450 nm) kills and immobilizes pathogens.UV disinfection system have been in the market for quite some time now and are a standard equipment but may cost a lot of money.Sun has the same UV light in the same required wavelength and it is free.

We need it today more than any body else.Water purification tablets and mineral water is being supplied.There are 20 million people who have been affected ,which is more than a whole country population of many countries.We are falling short of such supplies and should start popularising the solar method.A lot of used mineral water bottles should already be available in the system,as these have been supplied to the victims.Volunteers can collect such bottles from restaurants,hotels and clubs.Even new unfilled bottles can be procured .There is enough capacity in the country.

The need of the hour is that the media spread the word.Universities,volunteers and NGO get familiarized themselves and offer training and demonstration to the flood victims.Provincial and local governments and NDMA should adopt this method and popularize it among flood victims.Time is too short.Many flood victims are drinking contaminated water.Disease and death may follow, on a hitherto unknown scale,however used to we may have become to it.

Flood Relief:clean drinking water and PCSIR products

2010-09-01T04:42:00.000-07:00

Water gets contaminated in the flooded environment.And the victims are usually out of their homes without any pots and stoves and fuel to be able to boil their water.Disaster aid agencies and NGOs are often asking for donations of water cleaning kits that are imported usually and its supply uncertain.There are several solutions that may be implemented by the agencies:

Household bleach is one of the best disinfectant,approved by such donor agencies as DFID.A few drops per liter and 30 minutes waiting time does an excellent job.NGOs and volunteers should make these supplies available to the flood victims and do some demo and ax plaining.This practice can even be adopted as a routine as well

Another good disinfectant,quite effective and safe,was developed by our PCSIR. It was a pouch containing sand and silver halide.All one was require to do was to put such a pouch in ones water pot or filter ,and drink safe water out of the tap.the product was developed probably in late 80's and was quite visible.Several of my friends and relatives did use it for quite some years when I was weaned on mineral water which i have stopped and have returned to the boiled water at my home.I wonder what happened to the PCSIR product.It is no more visible.It could have proved very handy for the flood victims.Why was it discontinued? May be due to lack of enough demand or having been proved undesirable for some scientific reason.Only PCSIR can tell ? We would like to listen if they are listening us.

Five Reverse Osmosis(RO) plants and three ultra-filtration plants designed and manufactured by EME Karachi garrison of Pakistan Army were dispatched today to various locations in Sindh.Ultra-filtration plants have a capacity of 25,000 liters a day and cost Rs.50,000/- per,while R.O.plants have a capacity of12000 liters a day and a price tag of Rs. 2.5 million.Naturally ROs are quite expensive as the water quality is almost mineral water irrespective of the input quality.We have earlier discussed the case of procuring such plants on rent or lease or outright purchase of even used plants.Some areas permanently require ROs or ultra-filtration plants where these can be dispatched to after the emergency.It is a good idea on the part of EME of Pak Army to have engaged in this kind of endeavor which would have multiple benefits.

Flood mitigation:Planning and community participation

2010-08-31T23:57:00.000-07:00

Perhaps nothing can be done about the current flood victims,except the traditional relief activities that are being undertaken by the governments ,civil society and the international bodies.Pakistan is a flood prone country.Next flood would not be far off.Average intermission period has been estimated as 4-5 years;actual may be less or more.We should learn the lessons ,and take steps to reduce the misery and suffering that may follow in the next flood.Here are some suggestions;

1)Now that the water is still there and memories fresh,maximum flood water levels reached at all flood locations should be recorded ,not only in the books by relevant agencies but by the communities and the local administrations. Permanent Markings of water levels should be made on walls,and structures and if such things are not available ,permanent water mark pillars should be made.

2)Flood zoning should be done,keeping flood water depths in view.Simple building and land use codes should be installed, including prohibition on houses in certain areas where water depth has been excessively high.Raised houses,kutcha or pucca,one foot above the flood level should be encouraged and enforced.House clustering built on raised platforms should be promoted , around which there should be planting to prevent erosion.In riverine areas,where housing is permitted,brick housing may not be allowed;only temporary structures such as built of Bamboo,Chatai and sarkanda may be permitted.Even agricultural activities may have to be banned in especially precarious and vulnerable areas.Alternative land would have to be allotted to the often landless and poor people who engage in cultivation in these areas.We have dealt with the issues of Land and Housing reforms elsewhere.If for nothing else, then for good flood management purposes,some kind of Land Reforms resulting in land transfer to the rural poor and the landless has to be introduced.

3)All public buildings such as schools,hospitals,and administration houses may be built either on appropriately raised plat forms or entirely on first floor leaving ground floor unbuilt;only columns be there on the ground floor.Such shaded space can be used for many social and public purposes in the normal times.

4)A community center should be built in every village on an appropriately raised plat form.Average size being 2-4 acres depending on the population and requirements.This need not be pucca construction.Sand and soil from the river and other excavations and some stones could be utilized for raising the plat form.Only perimeter may have to be reinforced and also protected through plantings.In ordinary times ,this can be used as a community center and during floods and other emergencies as a refuge center where humans and as well as cattle and other belongings could be accommodated.A store should also be made where valuables could be deposited under a locker kind system,where feasible.

5)All of this requires pre-planning and community involvement.Floods need not cause so much misery ,losses and despair,if adequate planning is done and astructure for community involvement is ready for implementation.In our case ,the whole community becomes a victim and gets paralysed and converted into a begging and miserable case.Who would not like to contribute at least in terms of labour and other cooperation ,who has suffered flood miseries.Community involvement and participation is a must;it means local administration,peoples representatives as well as people.It appears that in all these days ,relief agencies have been working mostly on their own,without an opportunity for people to participate and contribute,except some on-field improvisations that may have been there.I have noted a guideline document on preparing an emergency management plan on the web-site of NDMA.But I could not find any actual plan itself for different districts,except Jehlum.Even that plan would have been useless,as it involves a significant number of local government representatives,who are no more there.We have dealt with the unfortunate absence of Local Government system at this time of calamity elsewhere and made a case for the revival of previous LGs for a period of one year.

Floods;lack of a communication protocol

2010-08-31T06:28:00.000-07:00

Federal Flood Commissioner claims that advance information was conveyed to government some times in June,more than a month before the advent of floods.The same info as not shared with public.It does not appear that even provincial governments were informed either.Had the issue been discussed widely even among government circles,the media would have picked it up.It is quite obvious that the flood info was kept as a closely guarded secret.There are three possible explanations;there is always a possibility ,however small,that flood and weather forecast does not come out to be true;advance information may spread untimely panic among people;and that exact timing could not have been possibly predicted.Flood warning ,as per routine,was issued 3-6 hours before.That is too short a warning for such a horrendous flood.

Even a guarded discussion in the media could have provided some time and guidance to the people to do some advance planning to save their lives and property.Floods are not like earth quakes.After all people know and have experienced floods in the past,especially those who live in riverine areas.Perhaps there is no Communication Policy in this regard.Such an issue should not be left on the whims and opinions of the reigning administrators.It should be a formal procedure based on research and evaluation.Communication is among many other issues that have been found wanting due to the lack of a formal Flood Management Policy substituting an obscure manual that is reportedly catching dust and no body seems to have access to it.We will discuss the Flood Policy issue in some detail later.

If nothing else cattles could have been saved.President Zardari has earlier spoken about fixing a micro-chip onto the cattles ,in order to be able to locate them in emergency or in case of loss and theft.This could also facilitate cattle insurance scheme as a part of flood insurance or independent of it.Let us implement it sooner than later.NADRA's technology and infrastructure would prove handy in this respect.

The need and rationale for a Water Policy

2010-08-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

One may decry the need of a policy and argue that there is already a defacto policy and dispersed over many documents and rules.And the sophists may argue that our policy is not to have a policy.We want to be free of constraints and be dynamic.Although policies often are vague and broadly drafted affirmation of principles and targets and often remain unimplemented,yet in some areas policy affirmations and determinations are vitally required,especially where many agencies and sectors may be involved.We have seen how power policy has attracted IPP investment and Export policies have promoted and expanded exports.Policy makes decision making easy on the part of the bureaucracy and saves time and effort of the stake-holders in sorting out issues.

We do not have a water policy,although we do have elements and components of water policy;an elaborate drinking water policy has been prepared;there is WAPDA's water vision 2025,which also goes by Planning Commissions water vision,which is essentially a WAPDA's strategic Plan outlining its investment pro-gramme and strategy over the period.These are parts of a potential water policy but not a policy in itself.A policy is a holistic document,enunciating principles,objectives,goals and targets,resolves and intermediates cross sectoral issues,lays out priorities and may even provide guidance to working rules.

It would be relevant here to point out that some of our flood management problems are due to the non-availability of a policy document;the issue of coordination between PMD,FFC and WAPDA on operation of the dams;the fixing of priorities,storage vs hazard and human life.An archaic Flood Manual could not possibly resolve the question in time.Thus there is a need of an integrated policy drawing upon existing framework,improving upon it and gather support around it.Water is an important issue,especially when it is getting scarce requiring prioritisation and choices to be made.There are many issues which remain to be straightened such as royalties and user charges,water allocation among various user sector,investment schemes ,strategies and targets,around which much needed action is to take place.Although,one may like to add a caveat here that in the presence of water sector reports of the lending agencies such as ADB and World Bank,what is the need of a policy.Policy without the backing of money has no teeth.They have the money and teeth as well.This was a mere caveat.A nation of 160-180 million people needs much more.

Our neighboring country India introduced a Water Policy as early as in 1987 and revised and updated it in 2002.Our Ministry of Water and Power should make an immediate beginning in this respect.The honorable minister will get a feather in his cap ,as well as the government. After all it is a highly competitive political and democratic environment wherein achievements are to be made and demonstrated as well.The immediate contribution of a political government is enunciation of policy.Implementation keeps following.Even after 62 years of our national existence,there are still new horizons and virgin territories.

Pakistan Drinking Water Policy

2010-08-30T04:37:00.000-07:00

Ministry of Environment has prepared a draft policy for drinking water ,which is in the process of government approval.Work on this policy was earlier initiated by the ministry of health almost a decade ago under some UN initiative.Nothing of substance perhaps is initiated in our beloved country unless the impulse comes from the UN system.Finally the policy process was taken over by the Ministry of Environment.It is a good omen and an elaborate policy .

The draft policy announces certain policy principles the most important of which is that access to safe drinking water has been recognized as a basic human right , the existing inequities working against the poor are to be removed and that the drinking water allocation gets precedence over all other uses.The policy also lays out time bound targets related to water access,water treatment etc.It is an elaborate draft, painstakingly prepared,most probably with the assistance of foreign consultants,as is indicated by its relative sophistication ,its emphasis on gender and financial sustainability.

The draft,however,contradicts itself when it deals with financial sustainability and user charges.It should be patently clear that the poor cannot pay.One third of Pakistan is abjectly poor and does not get the required daily nutrition.Most water policies and the associated literature ,I have come across,argue in favor of recouping of O&M costs and not the full cost recovery.If drinking water is a basic human right,water is to be subsidized either through external or cross subsidies, for the poor.There is a strong case for differentiated water rates as is currently being done for other services such as Electricity.I wonder if the policy makers would make the requisite adjustments in this respect.Similarly,one would suspect the role of private sector and private-public partnership,however elegant and fashionable these terms may appear to be.Private sector requires more than adequate return,while in water sector,ROA/ROE are relatively unknown terms.One could however see the role of public-ally subsidized cooperative schemes.

However,drinking water policy coming from the ministry of environment,which is a kind of staff ministry having advisory functions and no implementation resources, may remain a stumbling block.I wonder if the Ministry of Water would have been more appropriate agency for drinking water policy which could have issued it as a part of the broader Water Policy.Perhaps drinking water standards and testing routines ,water and waste water plants standards could be more appropriate for the environment ministry.

If the policy is not to have the fate of just a good document,it has to have ownership of the line ministry concerned which in this case is Ministry of Water and Power.I am not sure whether the delay in announcing the policy might be due to these issues that I am raising here.

Review of FFC and Flood Management System

2010-08-30T00:51:00.000-07:00

In Pakistan floods are no novelty.A total of 12 floods came between 1947 and 1995,giving an average intermission period of 4-5 years.This ,however,is an average;it can come again in the next one or two years or in more than fiver years,but surely it will.It is important that we identify mistakes and shortcomings and take steps that these are not repeated again.Not only that,but potential future mistakes are avoided as well.

PMD reportedly did make a flood forecast early in June.But how credible these were?Apparently these were credible enough to lead into what one may be apt to call strategic pre-view.But does PMD system issues a formal probabilistic data,and the relevant agencies give credence to it and the formal follow up SOPs are tied to PMD ,is not known.A clear indicator is that WAPDA did not start emptying its dams ahead of time,so as to make room for the coming flood water.Every body appears to have played safe to save his skin,and unsaved the system as a result.There are two remedies to it;formal system and protocols dealing with quantified uncertainty and operational coordination.Both have been lacking.Federal Flood Commission thinks that it is a scientific body only and has no extra powers of coordination, a claim that we would examine in the light of statutory and written role a bit later.

All of this indicates the need for a formal and independent third party review,to inter alia,include the following aspects;

1.Review of the PMD forecast system,as to how scientific and structured it is.How much of possible traditional safe playing is involved.Is there a formal stochastic procedure available to deal with the uncertainty e.g.99%,95%,90% or just 50-50 probabilities based predictions.

2.How good ,inclusive and extensive is FFCs(Federal Flood Commission ) working. How simplistic or sophisticated is the so-called computer modelling;what are its variables;what is the scope of its output, quality,frequency and time-liness;does it limit itself to barrages only or goes down up to village levels;does it includes dykes and structures and their level and condition of repair;does it include topographical details at the required map scale to be able to generate forecasts for village inundations dynamically.Do they produce flood maps regularly and dynamically?Has adequately detailed flood zoning been done and tied to flood scenarios?Most probably their system does static analysis and generates broad macro outputs of limited value in flood management,otherwise eleventh hour and totally improvised management by local administration would not have been there.

3.Where is the flood manual?It was not visible at all.Is it adequate?when was the last time it was updated?How frequently it was used? what were the problems using it?

4.NDMA/PDMAs have apparently only a role in relief assistance and fire fighting,which it reportedly did with the assistance of Pakistan Army and Navy.NDMA. was established in the wake of Earthquake of 1995?.It has not been given much of a mandate and role in Flood Management.Every body including provincial governments believed that FFc is responsible for flood coordination and management,which FFC denies that it has such responsibility.FFC says it is only a scientific body.In that case it may be advisable that NDMA be given the responsibility of flood management and coordination,both in terms of planning and execution,while FFC continues to perform its purely technical functions it is capable of.

5.Consideration may be given to organize NDMA on the lines of FEMA(Federal Emergency Management Agency) of the USA.More centrist outlook may have to be adopted than the delay prone federalist structures in such emergency situations.There is certainly a major role of provincial and local governments in relief operations.However,the executive authority of emergency management may not be diluted by federal principles for the benefit of constituents themselves.

Flood dividends

2010-08-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

In agrarian societies floods have always been considered and looked forward to.They brought much needed water and soil fertility and rejuvenated the land.Due to increasing population and human settlements and environmental degradation, misery,afflictions and losses have increased.In this blog ,I have tried to examine if Floods have or would give some dividends as well and somehow balance the sheet.Some benefits will accrue to the economic and social life of the people,as we shall see in the following:

Firstly,it is being predicted that in Punjab ,there would be more agricultural out put due to water and increased soil fertility.One is not so sure of Sindh,as devastation has been more intense and widespread.Will water recede soon in time and people rehabilitated in time to start their agricultural cycle,is an open question.

Secondly consensus on storage dams seem to be emerging in Sindh, as if we needed this much flood destruction to recognize the truth and the reality.No amount of obfuscation would convince people that there is no water to be stored,that peoples lives and property could be saved by flood mitigation role of the storage dam and that human life is more important than the loss of land in delta .Already Bhasha dam is being built without opposition from circles in Sindh.Let us forget Kalabagh for the time being.There are psychological and political issues involved.It is difficult to accept too soon that one was wrong.Hopefully truth would have dawned on every body.

Thirdly provincial irrigation departments have been thoroughly exposed.It would be easier for the reigning government to introduce and implement reforms, quite a few of which have been sabotaged by these people.I have mentioned earlier and elsewhere of the telemetry system for water flow data that is in abeyance and many other reform measures in the pipeline.If government wants to break the water mafia.this is the time.

Fourthly,people will come to realize that Environmental issues deserve attention.These are not mere fashion as has been generally perceived and that we are connected with the global environmental issues. Global warming may be hurting us more than others ,as more floods and droughts are expected in the wake of the impending climate change.And the loss of biodiversity and the deforestation in the catchment areas contribute to flood peaks and gushes.Environment is a resource which feeds and protects us.May be more sensitivities may develop to pollution and environmental degradation.

Fifthly,more realism on international political issues and perceptions.Taliban announced that they would offer 20 million US dollars in flood relief ,if the international aid is rejected by the government.They might have looted and plundered to come with this kind of money.They in fact continued their atrocities even in the month of Ramazan.International technical.logistic and financial aid came in.It is expected to go beyond one billion US dollars in humanitarian relief assistance alone.Other project aid and loan is also being discussed.Even IMF is loosening its conditionalities.We should be very thankless people if we dont appreciate all of this ,and differentiate among friends and foes. I am sure this would also be a great source of public political education.

Floods and the mighty Indus

2010-08-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

Mighty Indus is being blamed for its ferocity;too big to be predicted or protected against? May be too convenient an excuse on the part of those who are blamed for inaction and mismanagement.And there are others who almost gave in to the mighty Indus and started worshiping it in the province of Sindh, celebrated a Devta Sindh day.Some participants offered milk and some kind of Bhaint ,it was reported.Mighty Indus has responded with a lot of bounty.Indus river definitely important for us,as our resourceful country has only one river and the rainfall is too less on the average.Occasionally in monsoon period,excessive rains possibly in combination with excess melting of glaciers, we get floods as we are experiencing now.

Let us see how big is Indus.Is it one of the largest rivers in the world , as super-patriots and conspiracy theorists would like to believe.Far from it.Indus is not big by global standards.It comes in a rank of 26th,take what ever criterion.Indus has a length of 3180 kms,drainage area of 0.96 square kms , and a mean discharge of 7160 cubic meters per second(250,000 cft per sec).

In the current floods,we have experienced 1 million cusecs(cubic feet per second).By comparison, river Amazon in Brazil,the greatest river on earth,has a drainage area of 6.915 square kilometers and a mean discharge rate of 219,000 cubic meters per second,almost thirty times as much water as Indus and 7.7 times the current flood discharge of Indus.Indian rivers of Ganga and Jamna are 2-3 time bigger in flow/discharge.River Congo in Africa is 41,500 cubic meters per second,more than five times that of Indus;similarly Yangtze of China with 31,900 cumecs.So let the size or might of Indus not scare people into submission and provide justification for inefficiency ,if not insensitivity.

On the other hand death toll of floods ,although lamentable,has not exceeded beyond 2500 or so.Perhaps disease may increase this number in future,God forbid.In previous floods death toll used be in the range of 30-40000.Certainly things have changed over the years due to technology,media,communication and development activities.New organisations have been formed ,and there are national and international NGOs.World community and mutual inter-actions have expanded.

We are told that the low profile Federal Flood Commission deals with the flood issues.NDMA has not much to do with it accept for flood relief work.Did one notice the profile of FFC.It has been a total failure in so far as communication is concerned.They have put up a website which appears to be still in development phase. I could download their advisories with a lot of difficulty on my fast broadband internet connection,because instead of putting it in PDF ,they scanned their letters and uploaded the same on their web-site,making the file heavy(several Mb).This explains more or less the outlook of the organisation.This must change for the better.

There is nothing to download in the download section.The so called Flood Manual supposed to have been developed by this organisation is not there,neither has it been made available elsewhere.Perhaps it is confidential ! Flood maps,GIS,inundation forecasts and risks.This perhaps is too much to be expected from an antiquated organisation.A review of this organisation into its functioning and output,organisational structure and outlook is highly recommended.The problem is that this time flood came after a gap of more than ten years.People forget floods and remember it when the next one wakes them.But these organisations are maintained throughout with ever increasing budgets and projects.

Provincial irrigation departments,although inept,corrupt and antiquated much more than the FFC,are receiving the public wrath rather exclusively.FFC must be included in this displeasure.

Land and Housing Reforms: Innovations and opportunities due to the floods.

2010-08-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

The destruction of life and property of people in this flood has developed the need and rationale for launching some innovative policies by the government.Some real resource transfer has to take place from the actual or/and potential domain of the rich and the powerful.Roti, Kapra and Makan are the key concept which the ruling party has not abandoned.There are others on the political spectrum who may ,even though grudgingly, support non-traditional and innovative actions

Classical Land Reforms are out of fashion and out of sync .There is no possibility of forcibly taking away some or all of the land owned by the big land lords.This may be a dream of arch-communists but there are practical ,philosophical and ideological issues involved in such confiscation.But there are other possibilities to provide some means or assets to the poor especially in the context of the current floods.

Government does not have the money nor the power that comes as a result of a revolution.Whatever flood assistance that the federal and provincial governments would be able to give to the flood victims would be out of the aid and assistance of community.However government has surplus land and the power to change land use , and appreciate its value.It can divert the surplus so generated to the landed aristocracy and the politically or socially powerful elite as has been the case in the past ,or divert the surplus to the poor.We shall examine how this can be done.

First of all ,there is government land mostly in rural areas,which can be gifted to the landless and also to the flood victims of a certain category.More land could be developed as well . Due to the increased supply of water as a result of new storage dams,more land would come into the irrigation system,which should be passed on to the landless poor.However this is a rather long term measure to be implemented when new dams are built and commissioned.Government is already distributing underutilized forest land among the landless.

Some conditional land leases should be issued to the flood victims of the Kachcho land who are cultivating land parcels there and are also living there.Because they do not have titles ,they did not leave their places for the fear of Qabza by others.There are flood control issues due to which permanent and water restricting structures should not be built.Necessary flood control measures could be built in the land leases and the amendments in the law if required.

Under new irrigation schemes,whenever these come up, trade-able water rights could be awarded to the landless,which he could sell to the willing customer or use it as his collateral or share in the distribution of agricultural output and profits.In this way he becomes partner in place of a surf.

In urban land laws ,provisions for high -rise building societies could be introduced,where virtual plots in the third dimensions are allot-able.Real state developers could be encouraged to develop multi-purpose projects,where in in lieu of subsidized land or free land use conversion,a certain percentage of 3-D plots are allotted to the poor.Currently a lot of money changes hands on conversion of agricultural or residential land to the commercial one.Some fee does go to the local or provincial government but most of the surplus is siphoned away by the builders,landowners and the social and political elite.So the name of the game is to create policy or innovation surplus and divert it to the poor.

There is a lot of government land that is available on the periphery of Karachi near Sohrab(outside Karachi limits) goth and in district Thatta that could be allotted to the flood victims especially from the inundated towns of Jacobabad, Larkana and Thatta.If Sindh has to develop regional economies are to be established ,as has happened around Lahore.Karachi itself would benefit from the regional economic development as Lahore has. Karachi's' economy has been stagnating for many years now. One of the reason is lack of close geographical interactions and resource reservoirs.Every body would benefit. However the idea would fail if it is used for political and ethnic manipulation and advantage.

I would like to add a caveat here.Last PML(N) government headed by Mr.Nawaz Sharif introduced an innovative housing policy and strategy for urban areas by transferring surplus government land and plots for low-cost public housing projects.A good innovative project was ,however,reportedly marred by construction scams.There was no need of involving government

in construction by a party which believes so much in private sector.That project perhaps be revived in one form or the other.Some residual land or assets may still be there.Musharraf government quietly put a lid on it.No NAB case has been filed wrt this project apparently.May be,there is one or a few.I am not sure.

In another blog,I have proposed buying surplus land from large landowners of 500 acres plus and creating an economic and tax regime that may facilitate such land transaction between the two.It would be quite feasible to acquire substantial under-utilized land from the large land owners.I would not repeat that here for time and space reasons.But who would bell the cat.Government of the day is forced to face one crisis after the other.Innovative policies require peace of mind and a supportive political regime.

Flood Compensation

2010-08-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

Government of Pakistan has already started paying compensation to the flood victims.Initially a sum of Rupees 22,000/- per family is being paid.More installments may follow after some more verifications.Mr.Nawaz Sharif has suggested a sum of Rupees 100,000/- per family to be given to the flood victims.It is expected that the compensation may reach to about that level.

Initially an estimate of flood affected population was put at 20 million,which was rather too high.May be this is the total population of the 17 affected districts.More refined estimates are pouring in which would be finalised when the results of UN surveys is out.A population of 6 million or 1 million IDP families is perhaps more closer to reality.

Le us try to analyse the affordability and genuine requirements of the victims.For Kacca areas who generally donot have pukka houses and are quite poor,starting life again may not be as costly as others.In todays prices a two room Kutcha house would cost Rs 30,000/- to build.A living allowance of Rs 30,000/- may cover expenses of three month.And another 30,000/- probably to be the working capital for whatever they were doing before the floods. Adding a cash liquidity for emergent expenses totals it to Rupees one hundred thousand.On e would like to be more generous and helpful atleast on paper,but then that would be an exercise in futility and shear waste of time due to poor implementation prospect.For ,one million families,this would amount to Rs.100 billion.GOP has already received flood aid offers of more than one billion US dollar.I am not aware how much has already been spent on emergency activities. I believe not much because alot of in kind domestic and foreign aid has come also.So flood aid of up to 1.25 billion US dollar would be able to support the relaunching of one million families.It appears Mr.Nawaz Sharif got his calculations made before issuing the statement which is a good omen and should be welcome.

There has been a tradition of issuing grotesque estimates in Pakistan. President Zardari started with a requirement of 100 billion US dollar even before the floods.More technical estimators in the bureaucracy later toned down the losses due to terrorism to 45 billion US dollars.There have demands earlier from PML for getting all the loans written off which should be a hefty 70 billion US dollars.This time more grotesque estimates are coming from government of NWFP.There is quite a possibility of inter-provincial dispute and discord on the distribution of flood compensation.It is hoped that sense would prevail and reasonableness would be shown.

GOP and provincial governments may legitimately expect concessionary loans for repairs and rebuilding.Asian Development Bank has already offered a loan of one billion US dollar.Interest rates offered are not known.International community may provide some assistance towards a reasonably low interest rate.Fortunately,in Punjab higher agricultural out put has been predicted due to flood fertility and residual moisture.However one would not be too sure of Sindh where Thatta is the most recent and probably the last victim.Ironically the lack of preparedness and the surprise element remains the same as it was at the advent of the floods.Whom to blame?

Perhaps there is a genetic problem with us.We cannot put our act together even when facing such challenges.Perhaps a Nuremberg trial may have to be organised and irrigation officials ,especially, of Sindh be arraigned and all those who indulged in political decisions in breaking the bunds and the dykes.

It is highly important that IDPSs return home as early as the flood water recedes to start their normal lives.All payments should be made transparently through the banking and Card system , a good innovation of the PPP government wrt its Benazir support programme.An expeditious distribution of compensation in two or three installments in the next two ot three months would be in order.Uth bandh kamar kya darta hai ,Phir dekh Khuda Kya karta hai

Risk Management:floods and businesses

2010-08-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

There is an old saying that irrigated societies are dead in the long-run.Rivers used to meander and change their course leaving the population clusters away.With no means of transportation of water in those times,populations perihsed.This is probably what happened to Mohen jo daro And Harappa.Rivers have been tamed to flow on a fixed path,as is Indus,which it does normally.River control measures have also had side effects:raising of river beds which results in floods.Flood this time has been the bloodiest in history of almost biblical proportions.A vareity of measures are responsible for excessive flooding and the associated destruction.

In 1971,many people in the then West Pakistan felt relieved due to the seperation of East Pakistan, because people here were fed up of frequent typhoons there and the need for help.Apparently Bangla desh has more or less solved its typhoon problem by installing appropriate managemeny system and we donot hear much of a routine calamity and destruction,although natures roughness shoul be still there.

In due course Pakistan has emerged as a country with all kinds of afflictions;terrorism,eath-quakes and floods and the problems compuonded due to the familiar but apt cliche of poor governance.Part of the problem could be handled and thus misery reduced by the same proportion due to adequate planning and management.We are today by all measures a high risk country.We have to learn Risk Management.

Risk Management used to be a term specific for hazards in insurance business or credit risk in banking.Today risk management is much more pervasive.Nations indulge in risk analysis as a national security measure and a wide array of stake holders and professionals participate in it. An area ,where classically militaries alone used to dominate the action.Recently Switzerland has made public a similar exercise.

Our business enterprises should also start taking business risks seriously and as a formal business management functions. we frequently come across business closures or heavy losses appreciably reducing networth of companies.Risk management is implicit and built in in all areas of management functions.However what is less common is an itegrated and formal risk analysis and management consisting of identification,assessment,evaluation,mitigation and communication.In the current flood tribulation,communication management has been a major issue and sorce of many undesrved miseries.We have discussed this seperatel under floods.

Business risks could be reduced and losses curtaied by adopting formal risk managent procedures.Medium and large businesses should make a beginning.In many countries adoption and communication of a formal risk management system by public listed companies has become a or comoing to become a legal requirement.There used to be a COSO frame-work of the US and now there is more universal ISO 31000 standard dealing with Enterprize Risk Management.Our management training institutions should also make a beginning in this respect.

In the recent floods many business assetts and infrastructure has also been affected resulting in significant losses to mobile and power companies.Plant siting decisions in the past have not seriously considered and evaluated flooding issues. Seismic designing and legal requirements in this respect are of relatively recent origins.Excessive exposure or market share in a product,sector or geography or technology are the non-physical risk factors.The list can be long and every entities list and its permutations and combinations different:inputs risk of availability,quality and prices and technological develpments in user,product,processes etc;labour risks involving cost,unrests and politics;receivables ,and there concentration in localities ,sectors etc.

One way to mitigate flood risks esp to businesses ang generally public would be flood insurance.In Pakistan flood insurance has not yet been introduced.Through flood risk insurance, resources could be mobilised in a regular and predictable way .Flood risk insurance would also bring formalisation into risk mitigation and compensation measures.

Flood Forecasting and Management System in Pakistan

2010-08-25T05:12:00.000-07:00

Extracted from UNDP / PDMA workshop proceedings

Subjects

• Definition of Flood Control System;

• Types of Flood Forecasts;

• Pakistan - River System;

• Flood Risk Management-Agencies Involved;

• Flood Control System in place at the National, Provincial and District Level and Its
Working;

• Role of District Authorities in disseminating early warning.

Definition of Flood Control System

To forewarn the communities (riverine/nullah/valley) living downstream of the river system/stream/nullah/glacial lake etc. about likelihood of approaching of High or Very High or Exceptionally High discharges for the sake of:

i) Taking real time evacuation /preventive/safety measures on immediate term basis; and

ii) Structural and non-structural measures on medium and long term basis.

Flood Forecasts – For Existing Flood Control System

Color Coded Qualitative Flood Forecasts;

Weather/Flood Forecasts;

Routine Daily Flood Forecasts;

Significant Flood Forecasts;

Areal Inundation Flood Forecasts.

Types of Flood Forecasts

· Color Coded Qualitative Flood Forecasts:

Meant to forewarn the frontline flood mitigation authorities regarding the possibility of floods due to arrival of monsoon low/depression in the vicinity of Pakistan. This forecast is issued in three color codes.

· Weather/Flood Forecasts:

Such forecasts give a descriptive information on the current and the next 24-hours weather and flood situation

· Routine Daily Flood Forecasts;

It also contains the current and the 24 hours weather and flood situation. But it gives the quantitative information of the magnitude of prevailing and the forecasted flood flows at the maximum number of direct or indirect recipients.

Types of Flood Forecasts

· Significant Flood Forecasts:

It is the forecast of occurrence of a “High” or “Above High” level flood classification at a specific site/locations over a river and/or nullah within the Indus Basin River System

· Areal Inundation Flood Forecasts:

This forecast is issued only when “Exceptionally High Flood” occurs and the areal inundation is forecasted on the basis of hydrodynamic model.

Present Flood Control System – Agencies Involved

1. National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA);

2. Federal Flood Commission (FFC);

3. Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD);

4. Flood Forecasting Division (FFD);

5. Pakistan Army (Engineering Corps);

6. Four Provincial Irrigation and Power Departments (PIDs);

7. Water and Power Development Authority of Pakistan (WAPDA);

8. Emergency Relief Cell, Cabinet Division, Islamabad;

9. Provincial Flood Relief Departments/PDMAs;

10. SDMA (For AJ&K), similar arrangements for FATA, NA;

11. Pakistan Commissioner For Indus Waters (PCIW);

12. Police Information Department;

13. Pakistan Forest Department;

14. Pakistan Railways;

15. Information Department;

16. Provincial Communication & Works Departments;

17. Civil Defence;

18. District Administrations/DDMAs

Flood Control System In Place

Flood Forecasting Division (NFFD), at Lahore;

10-CM QPM Weather Radar System at Sialkot, Lahore & Mangla, 5 CM Weather Radars at Karachi, Rahim Yar Khan, D.I.Khan and Islamabad;

90-HF Radio Communication sets for effective rainfall, river flow/stream flow data receipt and transmission;

Meteoroburst Telecommunication System for improved flood gauging & elemetry through collection of real time hydromet from remote sites and its dissemination;

Flood Plain maps;

Flood Control System In Place

Indus Basin Flood Forecasting System (FFS) through Rainfall-Runoff Computer modeling;

Wireless Network;

Structural interventions on various primary and secondary rivers;

Urban Flood Control System;

Flood Warning Manual;

Dams Management Committees;

Coordination Committee at Federal Level.

FLOOD FORECASTING DIVISION,(FFD), LAHORE ( H.F.RADIO NETWORK)

TARBELA

Besham, Jaglot,
Skardu, Daggar
Phulra, Oghi,
Shinkiari, Khairabad,
Nowshera

MANGLA

Kallar, G.H.Ullah,
Muzaffarabad, Domel,
Kotli, Kohala,
Plandri, Azadpatan

CHASMA

W.R.M.D.,
SUNNY VIEW LAHORE,
FLOOD FORECASTING DIVISION,
LAHORE

Tracks of Monsoon Low/Depression During

Flood Season 2009 & 2008 (15th June to 15th October)

FLOOD FORECASTING DIVISION,(FFD), LAHORE ( WIRELESS NETWORK)

RAVI

KOT NAINA, JASSAR, RAVI SYPHON, SHAHDARA, BALLOKI, SIDHNAI, BEIN NULLAH AT CHAK AMRU, BEIN NULLAH AT SHAKARGRAH, DEG NULLAH AT Q.S.SINGH, BASSANTAR NULLAH

SUTLEJ

G.S.WALA, BAKARKE, SULEMANKI, ISLAM, MELSI SYPHON

CHENAB

MARALA, KHANKI, QADIRABAD, CHINOT BRIDGE, TRIMU, RAWAZ BRIDGE, PUNJNAD, AIK NULLAH AT URA, PALKU NULLAH

JHELUM

NEW RASUL, KHUSHAB BRIDGE

INDUS

KALABAGH, TAUNSA, MITHANKOT, GHAZIGHAT, CHACHRAN SHRAIF

Tarbela Dam Flood Management Committee

Tarbela Dam Flood Management Committee has been formed for reservoir operation and flood routing to take immediate and on the spot decisions as per SOP. The composition is as under:

G.M-Tarbela Dam Chairman

Director-PMO Coordinator

Chief Engineer (Civil) Tarbela Member

Chief Engineer (Power Station) Tarbela Member

R.E (External Works) Barrage Member

S.E (Survey & Hydrology) Tarbela Member

S.E (Design & Surveillance) Tarbela Member

Security Officer Member

Mangla Dam Flood Management Committee

Mangla Dam Flood Management Committee has been formed for reservoir operation and flood routing to take immediate and on the spot decisions as per SOP. The composition is as under:

Ø Chief Engineer-Mangla Chairman

Ø S.E (Hydrology) Member

Ø R.E (Civil) Member

Ø S.E (Surveillance) Member

Ø R.E (Power) Member

Ø Dy. Director (Hydrology) Member

Ø Senior Officer (Security) Member

Coordination Committee At Federal Level

For coordinating the Flood Management and Forecasting Activities with specific reference to avoid flood peak synchronization during flood season following Coordination Committee exists at the federal level:

i) Chief Engineering Adviser/Chairman Convener

Federal Flood Commission

ii) Member (Water), WAPDA Member

iii) Director General - PMD Member

iv) Pak Commissioner for Indus Waters Member

v) Chairman IRSA Member

vi) Rep. of Director General Engineers, Army Member

Breaching Sections in Punjab

PURPOSE:

In case of Exceptionally High Floods, part of the discharges are escaped by providing breaching on pre-determined sites for safety of the Hydraulic Structure (Bridges & Barrages).

Total No. of Breaching Sections in Punjab = 17 No.

Operated by PID = 12 No.

Operated by Railway Department = 4 No.

Operated by Highways Department = 1 No.

Role of District Administration

Following Cycle of responsibilities is in place:

Issuance of Flood/Weather warning by FFD to all including NDMA/FFC/Provincial Flood Warning Centres etc;

Issuance of necessary alerts/orders/warning by NDMA to respective PDMAs;

Issuance of necessary alerts/orders/warning by respective PDMA to respective DDMAs

Flood Management & Map Phobia in Pakistan

2010-08-25T01:09:00.000-07:00

In my blog of yesterday , I decried the absence of formal and even legal processes required in flood management.On technical side most elements and organisations are there and mostly reasonably equipped.There are weather monitoring stations,radars and real time river monitoring telemetry system.Pakistan Meteorological department (PMD) and Federal Flood Commissionerate(FFC) are old and established organisations , while NDMA is relatively young.Nor are floods new to Pakistan and neither are other disasters such as earht-quakes absent from our scene.

If one goes by the contents of a presentation arranged by UNDP for NDMA and made available on the internet,all kind of the required analysis of floods are done;from precipitation,river flow montoring and forecast to flood zoning and mapping.But what happened on the ground,however,is quite different.People ,communities and local governments were hardly in formed and were caught unaware.Flood Commissioner says we informed the governments ,NDMA and GHQ.I have discussed earlier of the lack of clear and formal procedures in this respect earlier.

Advance flood fore cast alone in itself is not sufficient enough.What one needs is a dynamic and timel data processing and information dissemination system.The situation on ground is that public was caught unaware on 3rd August when floods originated.Communities did not know till the eleventh hour whether they are required to move away from their settlements and to where.Once rainfall had occurred and no major one comes later,it is a fairly simple job to predict as to which areas and locations would go under water.Lower riparian populations could have been informed.Either there is vague and general info involving very large areas which no body believes or the local administrations finally decide on eleventh hour as to vacate or not,when it is too late and the consequent misery and catastrophe.As it is administrative structures are week and local governments dissolved.

First of all flood maps should be widely available based on the flood history,if not to individuals then to communities and local administrations.Flood forecast maps dynamically updated on a GIS internet based system ought to be available. Churning out maps in one month or more of time is of no use.Google Earth has also made life easier.If you make a commercial arrangement and fee payment with them,atleast public dissemination aspect becomes very effective and economical.

There is however an out of sync map phobia in Pakistan at all levels from public to the defece and security agencies.Mapping and GIS has been actively discouraged and opposed.As a result Pakistan is very backward today in a number of fields due to lack of availability of the GIS infrastructure and tools.Volunteer groups disseminate some GIS data with a lot of fear of being harassed by the security agencies.It is almost illegal,although not quite.Copy right issues, permissions which are seldom granted are involved.It is some how in our psyche as well. Bangladesh frenzy was prematurely initiated when East Pakistan map was found in somebody's drawer.Similar was the Jinahpoor episode.And lately Armed Forces Journal in America published an article doing a scenario analysis of the breakdown of state system in the middle east and showed some maps. Ordinarily no body may have given attention to such an aticle as the like of which are published rather frequently and routinely in the U.S. But because maps were published,this caught our fancy and frenzy. Thousands of photocopies were made and circulated by concerned and well-meaning individuals.

Elsewhere maps are so common and freely distributed even detailed street maps are available on the internet.They all have security issues,internal and external.Cost of abuse and user benefits are to be compared.In todays satellite imaging regime what and where is the secret.Enemy knows every thing well, It is secret for the ordinary individual. In any case security zones,unless the whole country may be in someones mind,could be removed from such data dissemination.Recently a Map of Emergency centers and camps was published in newspapers costing millions of rupees,which could have easily been done on Google Earth.It keeps media running and happy.So map phobia should go and a online real-time flood mapping system based on GIS be introduced.

Secondly the state of repair of the flood control infrastructure like Dykes and Bunds etc.In the USA Army Corps of Engineers are involved in building and even repairing major dykes and levees.Our irrigation department and officials are too corrupt ,lazy and out of sync with time in terms of knowledge,technology and practices.Because public life and property is involved ,independent monitoring arrangements of the stability and state of repair of dykes and levees should be established.Independent monitoring involving on-site examination may be farmed out to different civil engineering firms in the private sector.However a database of the Bund and Dykes be maintained by FFC.The data base should contain all the technical data and civil inspection summaries on these facilities.A GIS of the data can be created on Google Earth and later on a dedicated network eventually.Actual major maintenance be entrusted to Pakistan Army or FWO.

Some kind of Flood Insurance scheme may also be introduced ,where in both private and public resources may go in,so that a long term saving and resource arrangement takes care of such emergencies at least partly and we are not totally dependent on emergency foreign aid and philanthropy for ever.A lot of commercial structures like grid stations,transmission towers and mobile communication assets have also suffered significant loss.Flood insurance would also force some standardization and regularity in the flood regime.

Floods forecasts and Emergency preparedness

2010-08-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

In Yesterdays "Dawn" daily,a statement of Mr. Zarrar Aslam,Chairman Flood Commission, was carried and I quote a part of it here:Pakistan Meteorological Department had issued an advisory as early as June 21 about the emerging flood situation and three separate meetings were held at the Armed Forces General Headquarter(GHQ),National Disaster Management Association(NDMA) and the Ministry of Water and Power between June 28 and July 28 had governments and relevant agencies into confidence about possible dangers and preparedness.The PMD had very clearly forecast" very very heavy rainfall" well in time.

Following deductions are obvious from this statement:

Unless the language used by the Flood Commissioner was deliberately kept non-technical for the public," very very heavy rainfall" is too vague and "taking into confidence" too informal.There are two possibilities either the forecast was not taken seriously as it might have been taken as other forecasts such as of our intelligence agencies which routinely forecast trouble in order to save their skin.The other is and which appears to be the most probable is that Disaster Management protocols have yet not been formalized under which clear statements have to be issued in formal and technical language and made public and under which certain management measures on the part of various bodies become mandatory.Where the room for government discretion and vague procedures such as "taking into confidence" is not there.

Public came to know about the floods almost when these finally occurred .Had people been informed they could have taken some measures to protect their life and property.Administrative and social networks and NGOs could have had a premonition and they would have mobilized themselves and thus the loss to life and property could have been minimized and lesser human misery would have been endured.In other countries government and its departments would be sued by the public,corporations and insurance agencies.

Information Minister Mr.Qamaruzzaman Kaira had earlier in a press briefing had also announced that government would undertake a review of what happened and where the problems were.The focal agency in this respect is NDMA which should accept responsibility.It is the job of this agency to suggest and get lacunae removed and developed SOPs not only for its own internal working which it might already have done ,but for over all and administrative machinery .Even an act of Parliament may be required to bring such mandatory SOPs under the ambit of law, minimizing discretion and preventing inaction.

Flood victims:Emergency support vs sustainability

2010-08-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

Charpai has emerged as a very versatile and survivable asset of the flood victims.Many flood victims have used it as a boat and have improvised it to transport themselves through comparatively long distances.Chapai is a usual site around flood victims temporary settlement.They use the Charpai in the day as a cover from the sun and at night sleep on those.It doesnt get dirty. Normally one doesnt require any extra bedding material.Charpai has survived.Victims could bring it with them and can take it back along with them when they return to their towns and villages.It is an ideal device for summers providing enough ventilation. And philanthropists may consider including Charpais and other sustainable items in their aid to the victims.Obviously Food,water and medicine is usually the priority.

Toilets and Hygiene is a very big issue in floods.People relieve themselves in water or nearby .Water gets contaminated and is rendered not drinkable.Thus drinking water is to be provided despite the ironical water abundance around.Bottled water is often provided due to its transportation and distribution ease. Low cost hygienic Toilets can be provided relatively cheaply for communal common purposes. Women and girls suffer more than men and boys on the account of lack of toilets due to privacy reasons.Toilets should be of sustainable/survivable construction,so as to be incorporated in the ultimate dwellings of the victims.It is important that people do not relieve themselves at any convenient location,but should be required to do so at designated places where cover,water and shit-pot is provided.There are many creative solutions which we have discussed elsewhere.Used plastic containers of chemicals and batteries could be bought or acquired from SherShahs.Otherwise a steel box of adequate size(15x24x12 inches) of riveted construction with handle and possibly legs can be procured in abundance from local market.Again this is survivable and can be incorporated in later day toilets in the dwellings ultimately.

Containerized Reverse Osmosis plants could be handy and effective and could be installed where electricity is available.One plant per tehsil may be sufficient and could meet cooking and drinking needs.When emergency is over,these can go back to the donor agency for use elsewhere or redeployed in far -off deserving areas where it may be required on a routine basis.Such plants can be even rented or acquired on lease.And a good supply may always be available in traditional global markets.

Pots and pans for kitchen and water storage are also highly survivable and a good gift for the flood victims which they could incorporate in their homes when they return.Most of them may not recover whatever little they had in their houses when they return to salvage their household items.TV channels are reporting that if food somehow becomes availabe ,they are short of pots and pans,which may also result in food wastage.

Floods:Emergency Shelter and Toilets (continued)

2010-08-23T01:31:00.000-07:00

Emergency Toilets: In my earlier blog , I proposed and discussed a plastic bucket based toilet with a seat and cover.Its main draw back is that heavier people may break it under their weight. And that it may not be liked under local cultural practices in the rural areas.Its more hygienic with its plastic film sack,and may be preferred by more organised and hygienic persons among the flood victims.

An alternative concept is of a classical plat form consisting of two or more bricks allowing the user to sit in a classical toilet position.A steel box is provided as a receptor for shitting.The box is to be !5 inch wide,24 inch in length and 12 inch deep,made of steel sheet preferably galvanized of 1 mm thickness ,of riveted construction and with two handles at the opposite end and possibly four legs of 3 inch height.It is normally fabricated by hand by the classical Balti/bucket makers,and should be widely available locally.A good sturdy one may cost as much as 500-600 Rupees.It can be a part of the victims ultimate toilet in their permanent dwellings in the rural area.The steel box is to be removed ,contents emptied in a nearby disposal pit which can be used as a bio-gas producer if the NGO is more scientifically inclined and staffed.

Another brick platform is required for washing with water.It is to be adjacent with the main one where one shifts after relieving himself.The user carries a lota filled outside with water.One may provide a utensil almost similar to the refuse one described earlier.This may have an outlet for water and a plastic hose pipe of a few meters.

A toilet room 5 to 6 ft wide,4ft deep and 7 ft high has to be made.It has two parts.Structure and the cover.Structure may be made of split bamboos,standard wooden longs,steel strip or pipe frame.68-80 ft lengths of this material wood be required.The cover could also be of a wide variety of materials like wooden veneer,ply wood ,hardboard(gutta),kraft paper used in cement bags,fabric,canvas,plastic film and sheet.A more permanent and sturdy and re-usable covering could be of corrugated steel sheets,which may however require a more sturdy and costly frame/structure. The room may be open in the top and curtains provided as a door and cover as well.Only pre-cut and ready to assemble material should be provided along with a set of tools like hammer,saw,chisel, screws,bolts or nails as the design may be.We will provide working drawings and may provide a volunteer supervisor,all free of cost by volunteers..Local skills and workers are normally available who if provided the material can assemble the precut material.A truck can possibly transport material for 20-25 toilets.An itemized budget on EXCELL would be posted in a while.Volunteers may offer their support or input into this estimating and procurement details.There are two very knowledgeable and helpful friends Mr. Anees and Mr.Ejaz Malik who would be more than willing to offer advice and support.Their contact numbers would also be provided after taking their consent.

Floods:Emergency Shelters and toilets concept and costs

2010-08-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

In the following ,I have provided a concept paper for the guidance of NGOs and Philanthropist who may be intending to provide shelter and toilet facilities to the flood victims.

1)Ideal temporary shelter is Canvas/tarpaulin tents.Pakistan has a large industrial sector making these.However production rates and inventory may be a problem.Other sources could be India And China.You can budget 250 USD per tent.Go to Alibaba trade portal for suppliers.prices and specs.Many suppliers are UN approved.Charpais may prove to be the best bet.Should be locally available.I guess 20 USD per piece without bedding or cotton sheet.Foam mattresses are another solution and may cost 30 Usd per.

2)There is a great hygiene problem ,especially for women.A room of 6 ft*10 ft and 6 ft high made of corrugated sheets mounted on wooden masts would require 200 sq.ft of steel sheets costing about 1 USD per sq.ft plus some 100 ft wooden logs,may be tree branches or standard panelling wood @Rs 25/- per ft.This is a transportable structure and could be installed in the settled places after the emergency is over.

3)Temporary toilets:Soaking pits could be dug,and that is why we have provided relatively large space for the toilet.Otherwise a more hygienic arrangement would be A large plastic bucket normally used in Pakistani kitchens as waste basket and also water basket.Adequate local supplies should be available.Matching toilet seats may have to be selected from the market ,again a standard sanitary item.If orders are large ,say 1000 sets,made to order buckets with toilet seats could be procured in 15 days.Also waste plastic Thelis would have to be provided in good quantities may be 4 pcs per day.Thelis are to be worn internally into the buckets.The contents may be removed by taking the theli off and disposed in a pit.One such toilet per 6-8 families may be budgetted.For those with lesser budgets and more intended outreach,only bucket-toilet and water bucket with lota could be appropriate.

4)Water buckets preferably steel water filters and lotas are all locally available.Consideration may be given for providing toilet roles as well.A whole set of these items would total Rs 1200/-per.

5)Kitchen utensils another Rs1500/- per set.

6) Cooking Stove:Where burning wood is not available , a small LPG cylinder with a stove would not cost more than Rs 2000/- per .These can be transported to the ultimate permanent dwelling.Infact most of the items except Tent are useable in standard rural situations.

I would be checking and confirming on these prices tomorrow and provide a more precise budget on EXCELL sheet in one or two days.

Akhtar Ali

0345-2447714

University Research:Water & Environment

2010-08-21T13:33:00.001-07:00

In one of my earlier blogs I mentioned about water and environment sector being capable of engaging the energies of our universities which are currently either idle or engage themselves on research subjects with no relevance or dividend for this poor nation.I further wrote that hundreds of Phd dissertations and research papers can be produce on locally relevant research.Fortunately I have come across a few passages in a landmark report of the World Bank on Pakistan's water problems.I would urge my readers to please go through the following rather carefully and see for themselves how we and our universities are wasting their efforts and resources in engaging in wasteful and irrelevant research.This is only water and environment.Similar opportunities can be identified in other sectors as well.Let me reproduce in the following,what the report says:

The Indus basin is a single,massive,highly complex interconnected ecosystem,upon which man has left a huge foot print.When a dam or a barrage is constructed,the water and sediment cycles are changed dramatically.In a system so massive and complex,the generation and smart use of knowledge are the keys to adaptive management.But there has been very little investment in Pakistan in building this knowledge base ....The country is literally flying blind into a very hazardous future.

The bottom line is that Pakistan needs to build a strong natural,engineering,and social scientific cadre capable of working with all users in defining the problem and developing solutions,monitoring , assessing and adjusting.This is a capacity which requires a wide range of disciplines_ those necessary for understanding climate ,river geomorphology.hydraulic structures,surface water and ground water hydrology,limnology,water chemistry,sediment management,hydraulics,soil sciences,terrestrial and coastal ecosystems,agronomy,plant physiology,industrial organisation,conflict management,politics ,economics and financing.

It will require an expansive and long term human resource strategy which will update the skills of a formidable capacity which exists in Pakistan , but will also strengthen the capacity of the universities and other scientific and training institutions to produce high quality applied research.

Let us try to build our research agenda in one of the sectors, keeping in view the thoughts as indicated in the above,which were conceived by a very eminent group of local and foreign scientists who have had the opportunity to have a closer look into our problems.

Floods:water accord and discord in Pakistan

2010-08-21T05:43:00.000-07:00

It is very interesting and yet depressing to note the diametrically opposite stands and positions of the antagonists from Sindh and Punjab.There is a wide difference of opinion as to the basic data such as river flow/discharge history.There is politics,skepticism and even mistrust. There is a chain of mistrust among the lower and upper riparians ;Pakistan distrusts India as to the implementation of Indus Water Treaty and other possible foul plays:Sindh distrusts Punjab and Balochistan has grievances with Sindh.Ironically what one party is asking from the upper riparian is not ready to give the same to the lower riparian. Every now and then there is a water dispute ,and vicious debate ensues.Small political parties make hey out of it,while large mainstream political parties get headache on how to resolve the issue without losing votes and support.

The differences are mind boggling.For one group there is no excess water.They say they require floods to irrigate their sailabi land and want to have adequate water flow into the sea to save Sindh delta and loss of coastal land.The other group says that 43 % of water is lost on the average,which could be saved in storage dam which would control and regulate floods and also provide for sea escapage.All I can see is misery in Sindh today due to the excess water and the consequent floods.

Water Accord of 1991 was a major positive development achieved in the short-lived reign of Nawaz Sharif government.The accord sets out most of the ground rules.A federal body IRSA(Indus River System Authority) with equal provincial representation has been formed to implement the accord and manage water distribution issue.One of the problem has been the absence of reliable real time availability of data on water flows and withdrawals.General Musharraf regime installed the most advanced telemetry system with a cost of Rs 360 million, with a sincere hope that the availability of reliable data would solve the problem.For one reason or the other,the system is not being used despite being operational.It would be eventually scrapped if not put to use.This is pathetically criminal attitude on the part of those who have a vested interest in continuing the water dispute.There are two parties to this state of affairs.One who fear to lose their stated antagonistic position if the reliable data is available.The other is corrupt officials and local politicians combo which would lose illegitimate income.

As a result their is total lack of transparency.IRSA does not even have a website.Primary data on water flows and withdrawal is simply absent.There is abundance of contentious articles carrying one sided stories and often inaccurate or convenient data.Some complain that WAPDA does not share with them complete data history on water flows.With todays technology it is feasible to post on-line data in real time on the internet from all the points where sensors are installed.Today in Pakistan,there is a highly survivable and widely dispersed wireless mobile

communication system,which is still working in all nooks and corners despite flood destructions.

Current PPP government is in an enviably convenient position to make a beginning in this respect.It is a main-stream political party having roots and representation in all the provinces and much credibility in Sindh.PPP has given to Pakistan the gift of 1973 constitution which every body except the military generals upholds and wants to abide by.The eighteenth ammendment has been able to remove all the distortions that were introduced by the military dictators.In the wake of the martyrdom(shahadat) of Benazir,Pakistan Khappe almost saved Pakistan from a potentially highly injurious civil war.PPP can deliver on this.Although,one is occupied with flood issue at this time, a beginning should be made towards the resolution of the water distribution problem.The framework is there in the form of Water Accord of 1991.Only the implementational issue s are there. Even flood problem and the dam issues are connected with the resolution of this.There are currently four major issues:

1)Implementation and operationalisation of the telemetry system which also has a bearing on flood management capability.

2)removing the lacunae in the Water Accord,such as a formula for distribution in drought and shortages and others.

3)determination of water requirements for Sindh delta and creation of consensus on it.

4)Remove malfunctioning of IRSA and bring in an adequate conflict resolution frame-work.

Truth and impartiality appears to be the rarest commodity in Pakistan's highly politicized water issue.Only outsiders such as world bank can prepare an acceptable regime.Foreign consultants are to be hired in which Pakistanis should not have a role and may possibly have a veto power of the provinces.Otherwise even foreign experts may also be rejected by the contestants.Outside help would be required even in implementing the system.Even a World Bank water auditor and arbitrator may be required for a period spanning a whole water cycle.World Bank has the money, technical capability,impartiality and the muscle.PPP would have to provide the leadership and handle the miscreants.

Floods:irrigation system,abiana and income tax on agricultural incomes?

2010-08-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

Peoples misery in the floods has been also exacerbated due the failure and breaches in the protective dykes and bunds.These flood control infrastructure elements are in a poor state due to poor maintenance.And why poor maintenance? Corruption,over-staffing in provincial irrigation departments,under-budgeting and low abiana rates/user charges.According to a World Bank study,in Pakistan Abiana rates are only 15 % of the requirements which do not cover even routine operating(O&M) expenses, not to talk of modernization and replacement etc.Where will the money come from.Land lords are not prepared to pay Income Tax,falsely arguing that Agriculture is already taxed heavily.We have seen how heavy is Abiana?And then one who earns the taxable income is to pay income tax.The untaxed and undisclosed incomes give rise to many social vices and exhibitionism also.So when you do not pay the tax and abiana as well,where will the money and resources come from.Today the houses and property of every body,rich and poor,have suffered.Misery is common,combined and pervasive.

Provincial irrigation departments have to be reorganised.These are corrupt,antiquated and over-staffed.It is widel alleged that they indulge in all kind of illegal practices in water distribution and are notorious in siphoning off the funds.For this purpose autonomous Provincial Irrigation Development Authroities(PIDAs) were made and a system of self management of user-associations was built in.

The whole irrigation network in all the provinces in a state of decay which has exacerbated the flooding problem.Let me quote here from a recent World Bank Report:Some recent events in the form of breaches in the first line of protective embankments in Sindh and the current condition of many distributaries,minors and water courses,and their related situation of Sukkur Barrage are clear evidence of accumulative neglect....The deteriorated structures such as gates and outlets...the delvery capacity of canals is 30% below design becuase of the cumulative effects of deferred maintenance and lack of rehabilitation.

The major solution to control such extra ordinary floods is large storage dams,which would regulate water flow.It is only sincerely hoped that the opposition to storage dams in Sindh and NWFP would go away after these floods.However other steps should be taken in the meantime.The most important of which is a sustained and sustainable irrigation and flood management system.The total loss has yet to be estimated.It would exceed several billion Dollars.Is it a good economics to suffer such losses and not invest much less in loss prevention.

Most countries have large rivers.And all rivers tend to overflow.Nations have built protections aginst these overflows.Chinese used to experience such floods regularly in history,but no more.

Apart from standard irrigation practices and building storage dams in the north,other unconventional steps have to be taken.Government is already on building small dams where topology and geology permits.Consideration may be given to enlarge their volumes by broadening and deepening those as wells. Also water diversion channels around major population centers may be considered.I can readily cite two examples of such water channels;one in Austria and the other in Canada.In Austria on river danube ,a water channel has been made to divert flood water.It is 21kms long and 70-210 meters wide.In western Canada at Winnipeg,Red River Floodway has been built whch is 47 kms long.A total of 2.75 billion cft of material had to be removed to provide for the flood storage and diversion.Also the silt load of the Indus should be reduced by controlling deforestation in the north.

Finally river-basin modelling and real-time river flow monitoring system building in details of dykes and bunds coupled with a rational and transparent decision-making system for emergency measures such as breaking bunds and dykes should be brought about.In the absence of a formal system the incentives for allegedly biased action are great and would be detrimental to harmony,peace and cohesion among the communities involved.

Finally all these measures require money and resources.International community can at best help in short term relief effort.Most of the rebuilding has to be financed by ourselves .If loans are taken,these have to be serviced.A consensus has to be built on the taxes and abiana issue.Every body pays according to his ability and usage of services.

Inadequate and delayed relief assistance and the potential for anarchy and destabilisation

2010-08-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

Our countrymen are disappointed,especially the flood victims and sufferers,that the required relief effort has not been forth-coming.Government and its institutions claim that they are doing their utmost as per their capability and resources.Foreign assistance has also not come with a volume and speed that one would have expected.Many are disappointed.Lack of credibility of government is being made scapegoat of.Flood impact is not as cataclysmic as for example earth-quake is,wherein thousands perish and are injured and maimed in a second.And the response is usually quick. Floods have delayed impact on the victims as well as on the community including the world community.

For example,today it was the first time that Imam-e-Kaaba prayed for flood victims and their welfare and prayed that Almighty Allah enable Muslims to help their brothers.It took time for the Imam to be sensitized on the issue and this may have also required clearance from Saudi authorities to make a significantly long Dua for the flood victims.Similarly governments around the globe should be making up their mind as to how best to help the victims.It is the 21st century.People do have conscience and sensitivities.However they would expect the citizens of Pakistan also to come forward with their financial and manpower resources.People are also getting mobilized and a lot of people based input and help is in the pipeline.

Our governments and institutions are what they are.It is a long term issue and not specific to the current government.This is what underdevelopment precisely is_ poor organisation and preparedness and may be vested interest.It is being alleged that the landlords are responsible for ill-advised diversions and breaking of bunds which has resulted in uncalled for inundation of many areas.Land lords wanted to save their own lands,it is alleged,and in the process caused undeserved and unnecessary misery.May be this may have happened in a few cases and should be reviewed.But it is highly unlikely that the scale of misery could have been lesser otherwise.The floods are unprecedented,not in Pakistan's history alone but even elsewhere.

However their is a limit to the patience of the victims.With time problems are expected to multiply.Disease may spread and local resources would dwindle gradually.There is a potential for anarchy and instability.Once it starts,it is difficult to subside .World community must quicken its processes and prove equal to its moral and material responsibility.International aid organisations are sufficiently organised and also the local NGOs and private institutions.If the donors have misgivings,their is an alternative route available.Pakistan does not deserve to be left alone or helped only in a lukewarm manner.Pakistan and its people were already suffering the curse of terrorism in the wake and consequence of the Afghan conflict of yester-years and now in a combo of Al-Qaeda.Supreme self interest requires that adequate attention be paid to the problem.Secretary of State Al-bright once said,"Pakistan is an international migraine".We didn't like it.But it may be somewhat true ?