1 week Ago By Dr Kamal Monnoo
Balochistan continues to come across as the region of main concern. Foreign hands and numerous vested interests aside, the reality is that something needs to be done. While one is not an expert for a political commentary of the situation, from an economic perspective the problem seems very clear, in that the locals feel that they are not truly a part of the national economic mainstream and are essentially being denied of their rightful share on opportunities and developments taking place from the platform of their lands.
Now one can argue endlessly on this brewing perception, the important thing is for the economic managers to take serious cognisance of this viewpoint and to devise a new strategy in order to start tangibly addressing these concerns; the sooner the better. The consolation somewhat is that Pakistan is not alone in South Asia where regions or a segment of the populace feels economically short changed when it comes to equitably sharing of national growth and development. Luckily, a lot of work has been done by different scholars and economist on how to tackle such a phenomenon – no short terms solution, but the important thing is to start on a concrete plan with fairness and honesty even if the journey is long – A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step - Confucius.
One such work that is recent and can be a good guide book for our leaders is that by Shashank Mani who has now been arguing his corrective plans on neglected areas for years, in his must-read book, Middle of Diamond India (National Renaissance through Participation & Enterprise), and where-in he outlines a comprehensive strategy on how to contribute to nation building by inclusiveness of people who have been economically left behind in a country. The book puts the spotlight on the long-neglected Tier-2 and Tier-3 areas, like for example Balochistan in our case, and how they can be transformed by tapping their latent potential. The strategy entails to start by assigning talented officers, albeit on merit and not preference, who truly feel for the area, the area’s people and at the same time have some pertinent experience on undertaking grassroots’ work.
Gaza rally flays criminal silence of Muslim world over Palestinians’ bloodshed The step is followed by giving them a fixed term of a minimum of 5 years (Mani even recommends 10 years in some cases), empowering them and to grant them access (if needed) to no less an authority than the prime minister who naturally has to take ownership of the work to be done along with the genuinely elected leaders of the area. The process then entails meaningful and transparent meetings with a clutch of local (in our case Baluch) entrepreneurs with a sharp focus on SMEs who are then supported with seed capital, training, imparting of skills and government support in the initial years to ensure that these enterprises become independently sustainable. Within this framework there is also a very significant and prominent role of non-profit professionally run corporations operating on market principles to act as incubators and go-to help centres to see to it that ultimately these entrepreneurs are able to shake off the ventilator support and start operating on their own strength in due course.
Also, the involvement of the private sector is the key to unearthing the innovative juices of these rookie local entrepreneurs and to give the initiative a multiplier or a mushrooming effect. Shashank Mani then goes on to explain the way of achieving a rapid & equitable growth of the region or the strategy itself, which is based on the main pillars of: value-added agriculture; agro-processing clusters; low-skilled manufacturing; hospitals, education and exporting manpower to other regions with governmental support. Man arrested with 1.
5kg hash Additional focus while sticking to his strategy stems from creating intra-region linkages, a digital drive, sustainable urbanisation, decentralisation and ensuring that the supported programs are women centric. He even works out a target growth number whereby for such a region to come out of its economic woes the timeline borders between 8 and 10 years provided a growth of no less than 9.40% is maintained.
The bottom line being to capture the very spirit of the strategy, because its success will largely rest on all stakeholders, local populace, an honest and a passionate government (centre and state) with a single-minded purpose of genuinely uplifting the lives and rights of the people, civil society and importantly, the private sector. Recently, on a happy note for his work, the Indian government decided to test his strategy in Mani’s own constituency - the troubled area of Deoria (or Devaria) located in the UP. The prime minister took the hot seat to personally engage with Mani’s initiative and a handpicked young and highly accomplished District Magistrate, IAS Officer Divya Rana (who like Shashank Mani is an IIT Alumnus) was assigned to Deoria.
This triple engine since has ensured that the usual red tape does not bind the aspirations of Deoria in any way and the conversation is only about protecting the basic rights of the people: economic and security. For anyone following the experiment, the growth has already climbed beyond the 10% mark in its first and people suddenly have better things to do than to just frequently take to the streets! 159 drug peddlers held last month Dr Kamal Monnoo The writer is an entrepreneur and economic analyst. Email: kamal.
[email protected] Tags: balochistan economic.
