'We are helping districts to develop a competitive advantage' an interview with Khalid Sherdil, CEO The Urban Unit

BR Research recently sat down with Khalid Sherdil who is the new CEO of the Urban Sector Planning & Management Services Company (The Urban Unit). He has served as Secretary for industries Punjab, where he looked after the portfolios for commerce, trade, investment and technical training (TEVTA). Khalid has also served as Labor Secretary for Balochistan looking after manpower and technical education. He holds multiple degrees in computer science from the US and Canada. The discussion includes the current projects TUU is working on including the south Punjab turnaround strategy.
Below are edited excerpts of the interview:
BR Research: Could you please give a brief history of The Urban Unit (TUU) and how it has evolved over time?
Khalid Sherdil: First and foremost, TUU is the data company for Punjab. We have data on each and every household, establishment, school, hospital and industry, and the entire data is `mapped on GIS. The next question for us then was what to do with this data. We decided to utilise this data to help in decision making. TUU then naturally evolved into a decision support system company from an initial data platform. From decision support system we are now transitioning to a policy formulation company as previously policymaking has not been backed by any data. TUU is involved in making the 10 million jobs policy and the 5 million houses policy with a focus on Punjab.
BRR: What are some of the projects that TUU is working on these days?
KS: In Punjab, TUU has been invited by the Board of Revenue to digitize the land records for urban areas. We are going to start this process from the start of the next fiscal year. We will look at all possible historical data in this exercise. A lot of urban data is without titles or they have documents from the British rule times, and we plan to take all of these into consideration as well. This will help us in unlocking the huge potential of urban land.
We are also working with the Sindh government, which is interested in replicating the property tax of Punjab that includes GIS linked database of all houses, establishments, shops and factories. The World Bank is assisting them in implementing in Karachi, and we have already done it in Sukkur.
TUU is also providing its services to the KPK government where we are working in Peshawar on water and utility bills. We are helping them out with their sanitation, sewerage and water supply pipelines. Our role also involves training and capacity building of the employees of the sanitation department.
BRR: You mentioned TUU has transitioned to policy making as well. Could you please elaborate?
KS: We are making the 10 million jobs policy as well as the South Punjab turnaround strategy. The thing with policy making in Pakistan is that it has always been an abstract process. As Urban Unit has the data, it is in a position to create an actionable strategy based on data inputs.
BRR: What does the data say when it comes to South Punjab and what strategy are you aiming for in response?
KS: In the past decade budget was allocated to South Punjab according to the population. However, only 40 percent of the budgeted amount was utilised. The remainder got re-appropriated to Northern and Central Punjab where utilisation was 105 percent. Some vertical projects which came through federal financing were also implemented in areas other than South Punjab.
The problem does not stop here. When we dig deeper, there are several vertical programs aimed at the entire Punjab. For example, oil seed subsidy is one such area and such programs are usually on a first come first serve basis. We found that 89 percent of sunflower is grown in South Punjab but in this first come first serve dash, people in the rest of Punjab took a bigger proportion of the subsidy. Even the vertical programs have not been equalized regionally.
Another important thing to highlight is that disparity is not just limited to South Punjab but also many smaller cities in remaining Punjab have been discriminated against by diverting their funds to Lahore in the past.
South Punjab has an area of 48 percent and a population of 33 percent almost out of the entire province. As they have only utilised 40 percent of their budget in the last ten years, the one thing that is clear is that the bureaucracy in South Punjab did not have the capacity to utilise the full budgetary allocation.
In order to rectify this past injustice, we are working towards allocating 41 percent of the budget to South Punjab so more resources can be diverted for the development of the province and make up for the failure to utilise budgetary allocations in the past. But how much we actually end up giving cannot be confirmed at the moment, because a lot of the programs are vertical or cross-province like roads and industrial loans.
Another tool that TUU will utilise in South Punjab turnaround initiative is the spatial strategy by coming up with a comparative advantage for every district. Let's say that your livestock is predominantly located in a specific district. The aim would be to choose these districts and focus on improving milk yields in these districts to help develop a competitive advantage for these areas rather than trying indiscriminately in all 36 districts and failing to make any progress.
BRR: The green part of the city is declining and is especially worrisome given the pollution levels in Lahore. Does the TUU have any ideas?
KS: We believe the focus should be on promoting projects such as urban forests. Up till now we are using the Punjab Horticulture Authority (PHA) for landscaping and decorative purposes. They were not being utilised to help in absorbing carbon dioxide emission in the province. The concept of urban forests started in Japan where they planted densely populated forests in various urban centres.
All societies should be asked to devote at least 1 acre for urban forests according to their approved master plans. The same should be done by industries as well. We have issued notices to 670 industrial units for failing to plant trees as part of their agreement with the government when an NOC was provided to them. Think of it as adding more lungs to the city, which will improve air quality and reduce pollution.
BRR: Is TUU also helping with restoring the master plan of Lahore?
KS: Yes. Until now the master plan of Lahore was being made by a committee of comprising solely of the employees of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA). When the new Vice-Chairman came in, he created a much larger task force comprising of civil society members, construction and building companies as well as The Urban Unit. The process has just started and the first meeting was held only recently. The aim of the committee is to change the existing master-plan.
BRR: You are also developing the tourism policy in Punjab. Please tell us about that.
KS: We are a consultant to the tourism department and are advising on a lot of projects. There are three tourism zones we have identified in North, Central and South Punjab. Soon Valley has been chosen in the central zone, while in the south there are Fort Munroe and Cholistan desert.
For Soon Valley, we are working on a rehabilitation project for tourist facilities. This includes a boardwalk at a local lake as well developing tourist information centres and lodges for tourists. We are also developing a website in conjunction with the federal government.
The plan is to offer government certified bed and breakfast locations for tourists. They will have basic amenities and quality assurance would be guaranteed. Where available, we will utilise government properties such as guesthouses and the remainder will be catered to by the private sector.
There has been a surge in domestic tourism in Hunza. There is a website tap.com.pk, which uses Akhuwat for micro-financing and they give a loan of Rs 150,000 for renovations of small bed and breakfast locations. That is a good model because first you have to give these small establishments some micro-credit to improve their toilets and bedrooms and then you can certify them. We also hope that banks will step in for lending to this segment as well given that collateral is available. The government might also extend borrowing for these rehabilitation initiatives.
TUU is also advising on converting the Governor House in Murree to a corporate hotel. The hotel has been renovated and we are developing a model where it will not be available for single bedroom bookings but a corporate company can book the entire Governor House for meetings and events.
BRR: What initiatives are you undertaking in the health sector?
KS: We are not taking short-cuts. In health and education brick and mortar is not the answer. Making more rooms in schools and adding more wards in hospitals is not the solution. In the health sector, we really need to move to electronic medical records (EMR). There is no other option. But in order to shift to EMR, we first need to have hospital management systems in place. The Punjab government pays Rs 55 billion for free medicine every year but a good chunk is pilfered as there is no documentation. Deploying EMR will fix this problem. We are also going to implement productivity assessment of doctors and nurses in public hospitals and BHU's.