Senator Abdul Haseeb Khan has emphasised the need for carrying out agricultural land reforms on priority basis in the country. He was talking to newsmen at a lunch reception hosted by the Dean, Faculty of Eastern Medicine, Hamdard University, Professor Dr Hakeem Abdul Hannan on Monday.
Senator Haseeb said after the independence in 1947 India carried out land reforms due to which its per acre agricultural yield increased more than ten times as compared to what Pakistan produced. He said in Pakistan landlords were neither interested to carry out research and development in agriculture sector nor interested to increase per acre yield or develop new varieties of crops.
He said industrial and agricultural sectors developed considerably and environment was conducive for investment during the period of Ayub Khan. After his rule no major efforts were made to develop industrial sector, he added. The Senator said after Ayub Khan's regime, it became a usual practice by all successive governments to scrap development projects of previous government and introduce some new schemes. Billions of rupees had been wasted this way, he added
Giving example of India, he said, "Governments come and go but ongoing development projects are never scraped." Economic condition of Bangladesh was much better than that of Pakistan, he added. He also emphasised the need for giving provincial autonomy to all the four provinces. Replying to a question about the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), he said the power utility's losses had been increased from 38 percent to 39 percent in last one month due to 'inefficient management of the company.' One percent losses means the KESC suffers a loss of one billion rupees.
The senator suggested that a public representative should be inducted in the KESC as one of the directors on its board. KESC has 11-member board of directors. Haseeb Khan said, "God has gifted us the most fertile land, huge coal reserves, water resources, but still we are facing problems in agriculture sector and power generation. Efforts must be made to develop alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind and coal power.
Explaining shortage of power in the city, he said total electricity requirement of Karachi was 2,300 MW and the KESC and IPPs had installed generating capacity of 2,505 MW. However, he said the KESC and IPPs were producing only 1,940 MW due to which the city was facing serious power shortages and load shedding.
Replying another question about anti-America rally organised by Jamaat-i-Islami on Sunday, and demand to stop military action in Swat, Haseeb Khan said the political party had failed to visualise what was going on in Swat. Terrorists had challenged the writ of the government, he added. He said military actions were initiated against terrorists in the past but abandoned half way after protests by such parties.
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