Infrastructure maintenance: Pakistan spends below three percent against eight percent in Asia

Pakistan is lurking much below on the spending yardstick for maintenance and repairing of existing infrastructure in the Asia where majority of countries spend 8 percent of the total cost of the asset annually against less than 3 percent in Pakistan, causing a big blow to the growth of overall economy here.
Since a major chunk of the infrastructure development work in Pakistan depends upon the lenders' releases, often disrupted due to one or the other reason. Therefore, a constant deadlock is the hallmark of the infrastructure set up in Pakistan where the scarcity of funds has put the maintenance and repair of existing infrastructure on priority than rapidly building up new infrastructure assets.
Particularly, the recent energy deficiency has hit the national industry hard, which has experienced the worst-ever load shedding throughout the calendar year 2008 due to snail pace work on developing new energy resources. To cover the ugly face of country's infrastructure, the planners have chosen a short cut of concentrating on major cities like Lahore and Karachi, the provincial capitals, for launching new infrastructure projects.
This approach is supported through the argument that the existing infrastructure in major cities would be choked down in the absence of a timely expansion. But no serious attention is given to country's 80 percent rural-based population living in abject poverty generation after generation where members of national and provincial assemblies are siphoning off development funds under the garb of street soling and drainage.
To add fuel to the fire, the vindictive mindset of political leadership proves last nail to the coffin, hampering again the growth of infrastructure development in Pakistan.
Just to have an idea of this mindset, one may give a serious attention to the Punjab government sources who pointed out in a dejected tone that the Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif has put the project of Lahore Rapid Mass Transit System (LRMTS) on the backburner despite a heavy spending of Rs 1.0 billion on its designing by the previous government of Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvaiz Elahi.
Instead of asking for speed up the development work, according to the sources, the Punjab Chief Minister has directed an evaluation of the project before proceeding any further on the project. Fears are getting high with every passing day that the spending of Rs 1 billion from the public exchequer would go unnoticed if such unnecessary delays are attributed to the fate of the project.
Interestingly, the Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had himself initiated the idea of LRMTS back in 1996-99. However, further development took place the regime of Chaudhry Parvaiz Elahi. Now when the policy makers are pulling a long over shelving of the LRMTS, the Chief Minister Punjab has initiated another Rs 50 billion idea of Lahore-Rawalpindi Elevated Express Highway while desiring from the infrastructure planners to put all their energies to make it a success story. It may be noted that the Punjab government is already executing Rs 100 billion Ring Road project, a major spending of which is again on the provincial capital.
Therefore, a total spending of about Rs 150 billion on developing infrastructure of Lahore and areas adjacent to it has resulted into a deep sense of deprivation among under developed regions of the province. The planning developers of the province are of the view that one major reason behind this deprivation is the highly selfish approach of the public representatives from those regions.
It is worth noting here that the road development fund allocated for the whole Punjab for 2008-09 is Rs 18 billion, out of which Rs 13 billion is to be spent on maintenance and repairing of existing roads, Rs 2 billion for new roads and Rs 3 billion to appease the MNAs and MPAs.