Mazhar Ali
Given the current dire economic situation of country, one needs a glance at the administrative services and bureacrats who are residing in acres of luxurious mansions.Their properties are located in commercial areas. According to an estimate, all the bureacrats of pakistan are residing on 2,600 kanals of property. In those sumptuous manisons three thousand direct and indirect servants are working. Besides the salaries of those servants, estimated yearly expenses of lawns only are round about 18 to 20 crores alone. One can only imagine the cost if one is to sell those commecial properties of the bureacrats which are ‘unprofitable’. They can cost an estimated value of about Rs. 70 to 80 billions now a days. Statistically speaking, this amount is two times greater than WAPDA’s current defecit, and if we give this amount to WAPDA, there will be no need to increase the price of electricity for next 4 years. If we look at the austerity approaches of developed countries for instance, White House of America covers an area of 18 acres while the governor house of Punjab is spread over an area of 71.5 acres. Similarly, Japan can be idealised in this regard. Said country, which is far more developed than Pakistan, despite been attacked dually with nuclear bombs, is famous for its austerity measures: the prime minister of japan is living in a single-story building with an area of 508 square meters. It is really failing to meet expectations, specially for a country like Pakistan, which is going through a worst economic instability. Governament should take strong initiatives to use these commercial properties for the well-being of country’s fragile economy. If the current government reconsiders on austerity commitments that previous government had determined—though it failed to implement— much fruit can be reaped. Government should announce that there will be no dinners ,unnecessary foreign visits for treatment or any other purpose will not be allowed,all meeting will be online and decisions like that. Government should focus on austerity-begins-from-home principle to contribute to stabilise economy that is on verge of bankruptcy. As famous saying goes: “little drops of water make an ocean”.
