KARACHI: Pakistan is always under the influence and pressure of natural/ climatic disasters that become calamity at the end of the day.

The Government without realizing the gravity of the circumstances, and on demand of International Monetary Fund (IMF), is proposing to impose through their finance supplementary bill 2021 a 17% GST on import of plant & machinery including the items to be used in disaster management, which is pathetic, said Ateeq Ur Rehman (Economic & Financial Analyst).

He added that due to global climatic changes, the countries like Pakistan always faces disasters like flood, heavy rains, storm, heavy snow falls, earth quake, avalanches, etc.

Thus because of ‘mini-budget’ and adding to the cost by 17% GST will further make the disaster management equipments more expensive, making things more difficult.

He said that we have very limited earth moving machinery available for communication, transportation and rescue operations; therefore, the dire shortage of it is the great hindrance in infrastructure development and disaster management.

The biggest example of it is the recent example of Murree incident of huge snow storm and mismanagement by the unprepared district administration due to which nearly 0.1 million visitors and thousands vehicles were affected, each having his or her own account of suffering without any help for days and hours. He requested that government should realise the responsibility and should tailor the policies and planning’s according to the requirement and necessities.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022