Self Reliance And Pakistan

1. Definition
2. World Bank’s assessment
3. Dependence on foreign aids- a crucial factor
4. A national will of survival-important for self-reliance
5. Economic decline due to host of factors-a great hurdle
6. Lack of capital, technology and mineral resources
7. Exploitation of the rich countries and the local mafias
8. Domestic resources should be harnesses for self-reliance
9. Check upon corruption, smuggling and drug abuse
10. Revolution in taxation system legislation
11. Development of skill and knowledge of people
12. Need for political maturity
13. Release from foreign debt
14. Need for agro-revolution
15. Conclusion

The concept of self-reliance is not now. It has consistently adorned official declarations and political statements to the morbid point of becoming a cliché. In theory, it always glittered as an inspiring slogan but in practical terms it hardly rose from its conceptual confines.Self-reliance is a complicated term but for simplicity one can say that in economics’ terms it may mean transition from a developing stage to a developed one.In this respect Pakistan’s economy, according to World Bank Development Reports, has been in the reverse gear and the nation as a whole should worry about it. Pakistan is a low-income developing country. The World Bank classifies all developed and developing countries into low-income middle-income and high-income countries.

At the same time, the World Bank increases he upper level of the per capita income of the low-income countries, from which hey are supposed to cross to the list of middle-income countries. During the last few year, while this upper limit has been on the decline and the situation has been becoming more and more difficult to shift from the stage of law-income to medium-incom, Moreover, it is being deeply felt in well informed circles that the period of large scale annual follow of foreign economic and technological assistance into Pakistan is over due to the rapidly changing international political situation. Drastic reduction in the USA’s economic military assistance under and already conducted long-term agreement is an example. The reinstating of US assistance to Pakistan is not real and it may be a temporary phase. Apparent elimination of cold war, end of communism in Eastern Europe, economic reconstruction demand of those countries and diversion.

North’s resources from South to East will have serious effects in the near future on the development programmes of the developing countries including Pakistan. During 1980, foreign economic assistance has been an important source of the financing of country’s development efforts in public sector. At the same time, an effort was made during his period to move toward self-reliance and the success achieved in this direction was a its peak in 1984-85. However, it was short-term and situation became alarming in 1989-90, the terminal year of the decade.During 56 years of our existence, we have become accustomed to a certain pattern of life. The continuous process of suppressed the real spirit of self-reliance and adoption of austerity measures. O overcome this phenomenon and to achieve national self-reliance, there has o be a revolution in thought and behaviour, which will require continuous motivation to create a national will of survival as an honourable independent state, setting aside the ill-effects of depending heavily on foreign support.

But on the country , the challenges confronting the economy are formidable. It is not an exaggeration to state that economically the nation today stands at cross road. A host of monsters are at work to retard its march to progress, to stifle the development endeavors and quell its aspirations for attaining the coveted position of a really independent economic nation.An alarming growth rate of population (2.1% per annum), with people living on about one Dollar per person per day, abysmally low literacy levels (10% effective and 51.6% theoretical), wide spread unemployment, deteriorating environment, largest dependency ratio in the world (53% of total-population) a predominant non-monetized sector, poor physical infrastructure thwarting desirable levels or substantial of growth, persistent energy crises ($ 500 million annual loss to industrial production due to load-shedding alone), inadequate availability of social services (education and health fetching paltry 1.7% and 0.7% respectively of GDP-2003), an ever inflating import bill ($ 13 billion) and huge sums being squandered on avoidable items like tea and luxurious goods.Acute shortage of public and private sector resources for research and development is another serious cause of economic backwardness of the country. According to rough estimates, the country spends 0.16 percent of GNP on research

The UN recommends an expenditure equal to 1 percent of annual GNP. India is spending is much more than Pakistan and the developed countries spends heavily on research and development. Health and sanitation facilities need to be improved substantially. One hospital bed is available for about 1650 persons, one doctor for about 1800 persons and one dentist for 56,900 members of population.Then there are serious hurdles such as lack of capital and technology, bureaucratic lethargy and foreign imperialistic interference. Transport and communications is more backward than energy, and the segments of this sector are mostly in public sector-Railways and Road Transport are most inefficient and run into losses. They are a great burden on the Budget of the Federal Government. While road mileage and the number of road vehicles are increasing slowly, the railway track-ilea-e- is stagnant and the number of engines and rolling stock on the decline.

Some strides have been made in agriculture but some of the agricultural products, which could be easily produced initially, are still imported. These include food grains pulses, and edible oils. In addition, heavy imports are made of milk and its products.The growth of manufacturing sector appears to have been impressive but it has been too slow to bring about any fundamental change in the overall economic structure.Another unfortunate aspect of the development is the under development of the mineral resources. Pakistan economy with rich natural resources, good climate with regional variations and suitable for the growth of all types of crops and hardworking labour in finding it difficult to move forward while some economies without much resources are growing at fantastic rates, Japan & South Korea are good examples.

While adopting necessary measures for self-reliance we should not be oblivious of the serious aspect of intrusion by western cultures into our social, political, and economic behaviour. Then comes the elite class of the country such as landlords, industrialist, military officials and bureaucrats which in indulged in exploiting the poor masses. If we want to achieve self-reliance in its true spirit then we will have to guard against the continuous exploitation by the rich nations and the said class. This calls for a national will to frustrate the designs of a formidable group having vested interests who will oppose every effort towards achieving self-reliance. However, while appraising scope of actual implementation of the philosophy of self-reliance, it is to be pertinently staying out of the net and massive cultivable land remaining un-exploited in world’s finest immigration system are serious pointers in the direction of self-reliance. A tax on agriculture in-comes so far resisted by landed aristocracy is another potent source to lead domestic resources mobilization effort. A ruthless campaign o crush smuggling and proliferating drug abuse which have incalculably harmed country’s primary interests; pushed corruption beyond all limits and imperiled social fabric of the nation, is directly needed. A mix of fiscal-administrative-moral crusade is required to be pressed into action.

We will have o educate and motivate our nation o release the ill-effects of the policy of dependency. Taxation system of the country also needs improvement. The deficiencies in legislation have to be removed including any lacunas internationally kept to avoid full implementation of outwardly good-looking laws.In policy planning, corruption is never considered as an integral part of the problem and thus its important facets have never been included in the analysis of he development problem. In the context of our effort for self-reliance, suppression of corruption must playa crucial in the and important role. Let us also not be carried away by philosophical thinking of some of the modern thinkers from developed world who have implied that is unscientific to believe that corruption is damaging. Emphasising the impotence of education in relation o the country’s development, Prof.

Harbisson has very aptly argued that, Human resources constitute the ultimate basis for the wealth of nations. Capital and national resources are passive factors of production; human being are the active agents who accumulate capital, exploit natural resources, build social, economic, political organisations, and carry forward national development. Clearly, a country which is unable to develop the skills and knowledge of its people and to utilise them effectively in the national economy will be unable to develop anything else. So. our educational policy should be oriented towards the real requirements and aspiration of our people.Another bottleneck is the structure and operation of the administrative system which are still functioning on the inherited style. They are out of tune with the priorities of self-reliant developments.