Speaking as chief guest at a ceremony held to inaugurate the development of Goth Ahmedabad as a "model village" along the National Highway, between Gharo and Thatta, under the Village Improvement Programme, Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, vowed all possible steps of the provincial government to provide the people of rural and backward villages with basic civic amenities to help them lead a better life in a clean and healthy environment.
Recalling that people of rural areas of Sindh had long remained victims of backwardness and poverty from deprivation of basic facilities, he noted that the Village Improvement Programme had been launched by the provincial Government to develop backward villages, and to improve the living conditions of their inhabitants.
Through this programme, as he elaborated, the village dwellers would be provided with clean drinking water, gas, electricity, roads, schools, health facilities, sports, parks and shopping centres, along with other civic amenities. He claimed that the provincial government's approach toward that end would demonstrate the importance it attaches to congenial living conditions of the people for economic development of the country.
More to this, viewing the programme as a message of prosperity for the rural population, he said that it would not only ensure adequately planned development of villages, but would also help their inhabitants gain legally protected proprietary rights over their dwellings and farms. Legal rights, as he explained, would enable them to obtain loans from banks and other financial institutions on easy terms, so as to provide them with opportunities of self-employment too.
The ceremony, which was marked with a detailed briefing by the VIP project director, who pointed out that development works in the Goth were being initiated with construction of a mosque. This was followed by the Chief Minister's visit to the schools and the mosque in the village, during which he talked to students and teachers.
Reportedly delighted to note that on the long pending demand of the village people, a middle school had started functioning, with girls among its students. The Chief Minister remarked that the girl students who passed primary education 4-5 years back, would be appointed as teachers in the same school after matriculation.
All this may sound rather humdrum, but viewed in the perspective of a long and pervasive neglect, the sketchy details of the ceremony, would make it appear as no small an occasion. Needless to point out, this should also apply to the Chief Minister's directive to secretaries of various departments to pay special attention to provision of education, health, and other basic facilities in this Goth, and to his decision to visit the village fortnightly to review progress in the ongoing effort, in order to ensure timely completion of the task of development of a marked model village.
For Pakistan as a country with a predominantly agricultural economy shocking, indeed, is the plight of the teeming millions in the rural areas where farming is pursued as a source of living. Lured by the dazzling industrial scenario in certain countries, the early planners had opted to plunge headlong in industrialisation, relegating agriculture to the background.
The scant attention paid to agriculture remained largely confined to enhanced production and attainment of targets. However, the pursuit to fall short of fond expectations of the economic managers. Notwithstanding the vital role of a number of major crops in the country's industrial progress, the gains accruing from both, have yet to reflect in the lives of the people, particularly, in the rural areas.
As such grinding poverty plaguing the rural areas where the bulk of the country's fast multiplying population has remained concentrated should be quite understandable. The need of the hour is to rush with job opportunities to the people right inside the villages even on a modest scale to ensure against their migration in search of means of livelihood.