Something that we can no longer ignore
A few weeks ago, a noticeable number of students fell unconscious due to dengue spray done by the TMA squads in two districts of Punjab. Extremely sad happenings, indeed. On the media, the tickers of the incidents were followed by a usual reaction from the government — suspension orders of the officials. As if that was the solution to the problem.
But this is not just a question of routine negligence of the street and desk bureaucrats. The issue carries with it a massive display of our apathy towards urban sector management – one critical part of the public administration.
Why do I say that? Let us look at the major public sector reforms on cards these days. At the national level, the Planning Commission has brought forth a set of recommendations like revising recruitment process, clustering of occupational groups to give some semblance of specialisation, lateral entries in the civil service, improving pay and compensation mechanism and increasing retirement age etc. On provincial level in Punjab, the main focus of reforms is to revert devolution of powers from districts to the sub-national government. And to bring back the old office of Deputy Commissioner with whatever has been left for him/her in the store of administrative powers.
While national plan does not bring to the fore anything new, the provincial programme is stuck in time somewhere in the remote past. Both the plans are cadre centric, preoccupied with generalists and ignoring the rest of the huge machinery that consists of specialists like accountants and auditors, agriculturists, doctors and paramedics, teachers and scientists, engineers, planners and architects and above all the city managers.
Throughout the history of our country, no other service cadre has been exposed to so many and so fast changes like the municipal service. And rendered so helpless on every account in traditional public service career – quality recruitment, training opportunities, career mobility and salaries etc. Understandably, the outcome is the poor quality which is reflected internally in the budgeting and expenditure controls, management of cash flows, credit issues, assets and liabilities handling, auditing, coordination, review, monitoring etc. Even the basic unit of day to day administration – the filing system for record keeping and decision making – is not up to the mark. So, there are reasons why we are dissatisfied with the services they provide to us. What is left in front of us? A weak skeleton that, for sure, cannot take the burden of the rapid urbanisation in the country.
Do the numbers scare us a little? Pakistan is the most urbanised country in South Asian region. According to the Planning Commission, out of the ten most populous cities in Pakistan by 2030, five would be in Punjab – Lahore (14,626,000), Faisalabad (6,192,000), Rawalpindi (4,149,000), Gujranwala (3,143,000) and Multan (3,025,000). Agglomeration Index (a measure of urban population estimation based on population density, population of a large city centre and travel time to that large city) suggests that Punjab hosts the most of urban clusters in the country – Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Sargodha and Multan with the strings of small to medium size cities at the distance of 30-45 minutes. The population density in these city regions fall in the range of 1,000-5,000/sq km and gradually thickens to the core to be in the range of 10,000-15,000/ sq km and above. There are 75 cities with 0.1 to 1 million people in Pakistan and most of them are in Punjab.
These urban areas require attention from a specialised group of managers who are equipped with modern knowledge and skill sets on city management to serve their areas with confidence. As the local bodies become stronger, the working environment of these entities gets highly politicised having all its local values and chronic charges of financial irregularities. The need is to focus on financial management that contains transparency to a maximum level. It can be done through a compulsory automation of financial dealings, training of officials on the new business processes and effective institutional and public checks on malpractices. Public participation should also be made part of the planning process through the instrument of Khuli Kachehry and use of ICTs. Similarly, it is also important to ensure quality of services they provide. And this should be meaningful as the officials apparently follow entire set of prescribed rules but on ground, the standards are quite different.
The city management group is central to our emerging realities. To the future of this sprawling Punjab with unending belts of human settlements to north, south, east and west. If we don’t value it now, we don’t really value our future.
