LIKE SENDING MAN TO MARS?

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/12/28/like-sending-man-to-mars/

• Pakistan’s record of resettling displaced persons has not been good

NASA is preparing to send manned flights to Mars. The pilot of the first human flight to leave earth’s orbit in 1968, Bill Anders, has called it a “stupid” plan, because he said there was a lack of public support to fund the project which would be much more expensive than an unmanned expedition.

For that matter, funds are even thinner on the ground for elaborate systems of roads, overpasses and underpasses in Pakistan. How well judged are these projects? You have to set parameters to work out whether a plan is viable or not. One of those is: what do you gain and what do you lose as a result of carrying out those plans?

In the case of the NASA projects, space travel gave rise to several important advances in scientific knowledge and resulted in inventions that made life easier. We got equipment that saves lives, such as the Jaws of Life that are used to rescue people from places such as crashed cars, a landmine removal system that destroys landmines without detonating them, and the invaluable CAT scanners. Also, think camera phones, scratch resistant lenses, home insulation and wireless headsets, memory foam, foil blankets, ear thermometers, and improved artificial limbs. Dust Busters resulted from a small device used to collect samples on the moon. There is also the computer mouse and laptop computers.

The elaborate system of roads in Pakistani cities, useful as they are, are ill adapted to the needs of the bulk of the public that walks, uses motorbikes or cycles to get from A to B. These new roads with long stretches of barriers between carriageways are not suited to such movement.

In 2002 and again in 2008 and 2009 Pakistan observed Daylight Saving. The idea was to save electricity. But because of a lack of systems and planning there is no data to say if the exercise was worth it or not. It was a costly exercise, and on the face of it we lost much more than we gained, so the schedule was shelved and there is no Daylight Saving in Pakistan any more.

Thalassemia is on the rise in KP, where doctors report that 8pc of the population is vulnerable to this disease. The programme that was supposed to help create awareness of the factors that give rise to this disease has been ended due to lack of funds

And now there is the Daimer Basha Dam project in the offing. Are we likely to gain more than we lose as a result of that project?

Laila Kasuri, a water engineer, has written a useful article about that damn project. She points out that while there is nothing wrong with building a large dam, smaller reservoirs and other techniques for saving water would be far more feasible.

At present, agricultural officialdom is of very little help in disseminating information, seeds and equipment. Farmers grow crops that use a lot of water because they are not taught otherwise (this is an illiterate country, remember), and because large factory owners are very willing to buy sugar cane and rice which are among those water intensive crops.

There is also the crucial matter of the number of persons who will be displaced.

Khalid Hasnain in his article reports that some 14,325 acres of land in Chilas, Gilgit Baltistan has been given over to WAPDA for the Diamer Basha Dam which is to be a 4,500 MW project. The dam will displace 30,350 persons, in other words 4,266 households belonging to 32 villages on either side of the River Indus. They will need to be resettled.

Pakistan’s record of resettling displaced persons has not been good. A report produced by the HRCP in 2010 talks about the massive displacement caused by several factors such as the Afghan refugee crisis, the military action against militants in Malakand, in KP, and against the Taliban in FATA, and the displacement caused by floods and earthquakes. Such crises are likely to continue in Pakistan. The construction of this dam only adds to these already huge numbers of internally displaced persons, among the largest in the world. The report says:

‘While a specific framework exists to offer protection for refugees, in the form of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and an international organisation, the UNHCR, has been mandated to assist them, neither is available for internally displaced persons per se. This because they remain inside their own countries, and therefore do not have a similar claim to assistance and protection under any international legal instrument or from an international organisation. It has not been uncommon for the government of Pakistan to restrict humanitarian assistance or even block access to displaced populations for a range of reasons. Ongoing conflict and overall insecurity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA have also impeded humanitarian assistance to the internally displaced people. Despite hosting one of the world’s largest displaced populations in modern times – the refugees from Afghanistan to Pakistan – Pakistan remains surprisingly ill-equipped to deal with large-scale internal displacement at both the policy and implementation levels.’

The report adds that:

‘The country has neither prepared nor enacted any specific domestic legislation or policies addressing internal displacement or put in place a framework for the protection of internally displaced persons.’

The population of Pakistan, including its displaced persons, requires safe drinking water, shelter, medical care, food, education, and work opportunities. At present more than half of the children in Baluchistan are subject to stunted growth because of malnutrition, and child mortality in the province is higher than in the other provinces. Almost as many mothers suffer from malnutrition and iodine deficiency, and the incidence of anemia among mothers and children is very high.

Thalassemia is on the rise in KP, where doctors report that 8pc of the population is vulnerable to this disease. The programme that was supposed to help create awareness of the factors that give rise to this disease has been ended due to lack of funds.

So, what was it that Bill Anders said about sending man to Mars? Does the comment apply also to projects here that are likely to create even more displacement in an already cash strapped environment? If the same advantages that the larger project sets out to obtain could have been obtained just as well or better by smaller, less disruptive means, are the larger projects a good idea?