'Crude estimations of SMEs survival'

This is apropos a Business Recorder analysis "Crude estimations of SMEs survival" carried by the newspaper in its Analyses and Comments section the other day. It has argued, among other things, "Granted that the government does not have time for a full-blown SME survey given the urgency of decisions need to be taken by the government. But one expects the government to improve its approach in the months to come; after all the PM himself has publicly stated that he expects the pandemic to last up to 12 months. Ergo, government endowments are here to stay indefinitely."

The question, however, is: how can the federal government take informed or implementable decisions in the presence of a vastly different approach that the province of Sindh has taken for good or bad reasons? The top leadership of PPP, which has its government in Sindh, has been accusing the federal government of failing to take the required steps to deal with the challenge of coronavirus. The PM has, for example, said that the lockdown will only be lifted gradually. The Sindh government, however, is likely to tighten lockdown in view of spike in coronavirus cases. So what good an SME survey can do in the presence of divergent approaches to coronavirus spectre.