God's not-too-little Acre

Pakistan's land mass is finite - limited by geographical boundaries, until climate change throws up a few islands or dredging the sea gets a technological boost. State land, on the other hand, seems to be infinite; an in-exhaustible stock. Somehow we always manage to unearth those not-so-little acres to palm off to functionaries of state, camp followers, social entrepreneurs, industrialists, developers, what have you. Our lust for land is universal, and a function of power - the higher up on the power ladder the greater thesense of entitlement. The cynics may well ask what distinguishes grantees from grabbers - one category has the force of law behind them and the other the indulgence of law-enforcers!
'Land grant' is not our invention. Kings did it. Imperial powers did it. 'Missions to civilise' did it. To this day, our land grant policies are driven by the Colonisation of Government Lands Act of 1912, which empowered the colonial masters to grant land as reward for services rendered, for horse breeding (that helped breed some of our leading families), common lands, cantonments, railways, and public welfare projects. We enlarged the scope througha slew of new grant policies: Prime Minister and Chief Minister's schemes, Resettlement schemes, Tube well scheme, Border Area scheme etc., and all those development authorities that announced the 'coming of age' of every major town.
The 1912 Act sought to capitalise on investments in new canals and earn more land revenue for the state; our embellishments sought to benefit individuals at the cost of the state. The Act made the administrative 'steel frame' more sturdy, our refinements made it more pliable. The carrot of the Act came with the stick - grantees were 'tenants' and lands could be resumed for bad behavior;ouramendments facilitated proprietary rights.
It is interesting that government's purchases of even thousands are subject to tender requirements and the entire paraphernalia of the procurement law, but land worth billions can be given away at will. The Public Accounts Committee loves to grill departments, sometimes unnecessarily, forimpropriety of expenditure but rarely questionsimproper land disposals. Whatever happened to CDA allotting that generous plot to the Foreign Office Wives Association, for instance?
For sure, there are rules governing grant of land. Unsurprisingly, it gives the government a lot of leeway, withthe omnibus clause "the competent authority may relax these rules...." adding pudding to the icing. One wonders if our whimsical land grant policies are meant to provide for social mobility - making anybody somebody, if he belongs.It shouldn't come as a surprise that the Boards of Revenue are hard pressed to give you the total acreage that has been given away.
State land is a tangible asset bearing a monetary value. What gives the government the right to squander it and virtually give it away in a highly discriminatory manner? It cannot be treated as a huge slush fund.
If a state functionary has to be rewarded for meritorious services why can't the state give him a cash reward equivalent to the market value of the residential plot or farmland that it proposes to give? This will be a more efficient disposition and most certainly more transparent as it would require merit criteria to be well-defined.
If not reward but compensation (for abominably low salaries) is the primary motivation then by all means make the government salaries compatible, to the extent possible, with those in the private sector that require equivalent skills or levels of responsibility. The resultant burden on the budget can be met through the sale of the very same lands that are gifted away or doled out at highly subsidised rates. Besides being transparent and fair to the entire class of servants paid for from the budget it will reduce the 'intermediation costs' and add to tax buoyancy. Why the government does not do so defies logic, besides raising questions of intent and probity.
This line of questioning can be extended to the social sectors as well, or for that matter manufacturing or other enterprises, whether for profit or not. If someone wants to set up an educational facility why should she expect free land? If funds can be found for all else - cement and steel, furniture and furnishings - how can it be presumed that the noble venture can only take off on the wings of free land? If government's financial contribution is critical to the viability of the venture why not tap the government's private-public-partnership window? Too bad if the government is a monster of a partner; if you take someone's money (and land is money), whether bank or venture capital or angel fund, you have to put up with his idiosyncrasies as well.
Many a tax-lite fortune has been made in the urban housing sector. Speculators couldn't have asked for more. With everyone, from the industrialist to the housewife piling up, an unending pyramid of wealth has been foisted on state land. This has also put reasonable housing beyond the reach of those who depend on an honest living.
Karachi, with the housing crisis ushered in by the partition and sustained by fortune hunters from the North, provided the model. PECHS parented all kinds of societies. KDA came into being and the mafia followed with the KatchiAbaadis. The model was replicated with great gusto elsewhere. CDA in Islamabad and the cantonments, large swathes of which were converted into Housing Authorities, scaled up the model to new heights.
But the land rush had little for the wretched of the earth, the landless hari. Policies for landless farmers, often well intended,failed due to design defects: lack of financesfor inputs and uncertain water supply. Invariably, state land granted to the hari ended up with the neighbouring land lord.
If there is one category that deserves state land it is the peasant; if there is one cause worthy of Human Rights Commission's espousal it is the plight of the hari.
The State is still sitting on a lot of land. The barracks-infested not-too-little acres spanning the back of the Sindh High Court and the old Victoria Road is illustrative. In economic terms, it is a dead-weight loss. The governments should unload state land, at market prices, before we have more of the jackals circling an accommodating regimen to grab God's little acre.
shabirahmed@yahoo.com