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Pakistan’s agrarian economy is on the brink

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  • Pakistan’s agrarian economy is on the brink

    uesday, May 09, 2006 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version

    EDITORIAL: A tough summer ahead

    If our weather experts are right, Pakistan’s agrarian economy is on the brink of shock treatment, leading to water and energy shortages, and, needless to say, a massive politicisation of the natural causes behind it. It happened in 1970 when a cyclone hit East Pakistan, eventually leading to Pakistan’s break up. It happened to governments in the 1990s, and it is bound to happen this time too. Only this time the political problems are mounting and will mix explosively with Nature’s inclemency. The opposition is going to squeeze the last drop of political advantage out of the trouble that lies ahead, and the government is going to be hard pressed to keep the distressed population from thinking negatively about it in the run-up to the 2007 election.

    Warning has been received of a possible drought in the country with no signs of significant rainfall over the next two months. The water levels, while rising in some dams because of a fast glacier-melt, are already low in the major dams of Tarbela and Mangla; and in Sindh and Balochistan the signs of a big drought are beginning to manifest themselves. When the dry spell hits the rest of the country in the coming months, crop estimates will have to be drawn down and preparations made to import significant amounts of food next year. The sugar-cane was already short and Pakistan has become a net importer of sugar; now the rice crop, to be planted in the next few months, too may be affected.

    Pakistan was hit by history’s biggest earthquake last year and there was much suffering because of the inclement weather in the quake-hit region, but, over-all, the rains were lower by 40 percent; and our mountains received 25 percent less snow. There is no forecast for rains in the next two months and hopes pinned on this year’s monsoons should be tempered by the fact that the eastern winds have been tapering off for the last decade or so. We will have to rely more on gas-based electricity production in the coming months while our major indigenous source of gas in Sui in Balochistan is subject to an unprecedented local unrest disrupting supplies as never before in history.

    The national economy is single-crop. We depend on cotton for our survival, but this crop too is going to be damaged by the drought, affecting Punjab the most where 80 percent of it is grown. The estimate from the government is that the coming drought will hit over a million people in Sindh and Balochistan, but we know that in the 1998-2001 drought, 2.21 million people suffered in Sindh and Balochistan. All forecasts can be proved wrong if the drought breaks and there is rain enough to fill our dams, but if that doesn’t happen, we should be ready for a very tough summer in which all sorts of crises will break over the country, not least political ones feeding on natural calamity.

    The oil price shock is in the process of being passed on to the citizens while the opposition cries foul questioning the government’s “manipulation” of the duties on imported oil. As people come under pressure from rising prices across the board no one listens to economic analysis. Last time there was drought-related famine in Sindh and Balochistan it gave rise to deep national grievances among the population. The government was found wanting in addressing the crisis in Balochistan where the death of livestock was followed by migration of tribes from their traditional habitat. The triumphalism of having become a nuclear power in 1998 faded away under the national crisis. Sadly, the pain inflicted in Balochistan was isolated and forgotten, but this time emotions are high in the province and when famine comes in the wake of the drought people will expect to be looked after.

    At this moment of impending calamity Pakistan finds itself in a crisis of national cohesion. The provinces — barring Punjab — are alienated from the centre on a variety of issues and there is a kind of insurrection going on in Balochistan and the Tribal Areas. On the political front, there is a hostile clerical government in the NWFP which feels paranoid about Islamabad, a deeply divided coalition in Balochistan, while in Sindh there are subsurface rivalries within the ruling coalition facing a very hostile Karachi-based clerical opposition. In Islamabad the ruling party itself is riven with disputes among its squabbling politicians as the “combined opposition” gathers strength to stage a grand nation-wide protest in September. If the drought is long-drawn out and the government can’t save the population from suffering under it, Pakistan could yet enter a dangerous period of instability. *

    http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...9-5-2006_pg3_1


    "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

    I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

    HAKUNA MATATA

  • #2
    Dont worry, ummah will come to help pakistan.
    Hala Madrid!!

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