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Maladministration blamed for rising poverty in Sindh

By Aziz Malik 

The province of Sindh has continued to face low economic growth, ignorance of rural areas, poor education and health sectors and mismanagement of irrigation water. - File photo

HYDERABAD: The Institute of Sindh Affairs has put blame for rising poverty in the province on maladministration, lower economic growth, lack of attention to rural areas and investment in education and health sectors, black-marketing of agriculture inputs and mismanagement in distribution of irrigation water.

‘It is a direct result of the fact that provinces do not have provincial autonomy and as such they do not have control and ownership of their resources,’ the institute said in its pre-budget proposals after a meeting of experts.

The institute pointed out that Sindh, which has 99 per cent of total coal reserves of the country, produces 48 per cent of natural gas and 62 per cent of oil ‘does not get proper benefit/royalty for all natural resources.’

About the NFC Award, the meeting said that it was generally felt that the federal government did not do justice to smaller provinces particularly Sindh. GST had never been considered as federal tax in any part of the world and it had remained a provincial or regional tax, it said.

Secondly, nowhere in the world were resources distributed on the basis of only one indicator i.e. population under a federal system, it said, adding that one of the major neighboring countries distributed the NFC award on the basis of 11 parameters.

The meeting stressed that distribution of NFC award on the basis of multiple parameters was essential. Sindh had suffered a lot and for long as it earned more but got less, it said.The meeting noted that about 8,000 schools in the province were non-functional and one out of five children aged five to nine did not go to school and four children quit the school for good after every six minutes.

The meeting regretted that a meager amount of 2.5 per cent of the GDP was allocated for education sector out of which 50 per cent was mismanaged by the ministries and officers.
 
The meeting demanded that proper arrangements should be made for reopening all closed schools, O and A level of education should be abolished, appointments of teachers should be made purely on merit and funds for education should not be less that five per cent of the GDP.The situation in health sector was equally deplorable as almost 1,366 (50 per cent) hospitals were non-functional whereas 80 per cent out of the functioning hospitals had no specialist doctors, the meeting noted.

It said that the total number of doctors required was 30,000 on the basis of population but their number was about 14,000 and infant mortality rate was very high.The budget allocated for the health sector was only three per cent of the provincial budget, which should be increased up to five per cent, the meeting demanded.

There should be no compromise on justice, education and health. Sindh had suffered more than any other province in agriculture and its agriculture economy had faced a huge loss of Rs42 billion over the past four years mainly due to unfair distribution of irrigation water at the top and gross mismanagement of distribution of water at local level, the meeting said.

The meeting said that influential people were getting water regularly and more than their actual share and demanded that irrigation water should be provided to all, land auction by ADBP should be stopped immediately, and interest should be withdrawn and written off in case the actual loan amount had been paid.The meeting demanded that recovery of loan should be held in abeyance and the agriculture sector should be granted the status of an industry.

DAWN: Tuesday, 09 Jun, 2009