Punjabs social progress remains murky

While the Punjab government is busy spending millions of Rupees from the nations hard-earned resources on fancy development projects such as the Danish Schools and the free laptop schemes, social progress in the countrys most densely populated province remains unimpressive at worst and shaky at best.
The "Punjab Millennium Development Goals Report 2011" launched here by UNDP last month makes an in-depth analysis of the progress made on the implementation of MDGs at provincial and district levels and reports that the province will not be able to achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals in its entirety by 2015.
However, all is not as bleak as it seems. The first of a kind report clearly shows that on an average, the provinces progress towards the attainment of the MDGs has been better than the national average for a number of Indicators.
And while data and performance trends reveal large variations across the provinces various districts and its urban/rural divide, there is pertinent indication that the MDG-4 (reducing child mortality rate) and MDG-7 (ensuring environmental sustainability) could be met on average by the province come 2015.
But, on the whole, the provinces performance is nothing to write home about. Although the Punjab government has increased the size of its social sector budget to Rs.86.46 million in the current fiscal year, the soundness of the initiatives undertaken to improve healthcare, literacy and infrastructure in the province remain questionable.
A case in point is the Lahore Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) which has garnered intense criticism from experts and the general public alike. With half of Lahores paved roads lying in ruins and traffic congestions along the busiest of the citys intersections, the hasty, ill-thought project is considered by many to be a move by those in power to improve their political standing in time for the coming elections.
However, while the jury is still out on whether or not the BRTS project will magically revolutionise the commuting problems clogging the citys arteries; other more ill-fated schemes introduced by the provincial government - such as the "Sasti Roti scheme"-have squandered away billions of Rupees and made the attainment of the goals even slower than predicted.
The fact, therefore, remains that with 60 percent of the countrys population residing here, Punjabs inability to achieve any MDG by 2015 will have significant impact on all national social indicators.
In this lieu, the report notes that in order to make a real head-way, the provinces incumbent government will have to drastically re-think what constitute a developmental project that is "beneficial to the masses". Therefore, it is essential that instead of spending money on obscure and novel ideas, the provincial government sets its priorities right and focuses on projects that bridge the social and economic infrastructure gaps by boosting growth and generating jobs.