Malik M Aslam Awan
SINCE the creation of Pakistan unemployment has remained a core issue, to sap the vitals of young brains and baffling the old ones-the parents of the youth-who took immense pains to educate their heirs. Unluckily those who were in power corridors remained inebriated and in intoxicated slumber. The top brains of the country were too rhetoric to highlight the unsolved ever rising threat of unemployment. We feel sorry to note the equilibrium and erudition of the top brass of the country, who were inactive to redress this alarming issue. Our fragile economy has least potential to accommodate the ever increasing cliques of new educated and vibrant brains, who deserve to be engaged in government or public sector. Having prima facie glimpse of our country’s natural resources, one would stand bewildered that Pakistan is a land bestowed by God Almighty with manifold resources of under the land invaluable reservoirs and millions of acres of fertile land has been left uncared to get transformed into barren land. Agriculture experts know better that 99 percent discarded land is too fertile to be cultivated and yield unimaginable produce to cater to the 40 percent populace of the country. The cultivation process will engage millions of unemployed youth. Sometime back it was planned that barren land would be allotted to agriculture graduates to avail of their Agri knowledge and skills but later on this policy was discarded- due to the undue interference of the ill-minds- and left pending till indefinite period.
One would be astonished to know that millions of acres of land is left unutilized, why the reasons are beyond discernment. Every year millions of youth complete their education to serve the nation but they remain shorn of employment opportunities. Our political pundits-if had the erudition and soft corners for unemployed youth-had devised mechanism to distribute the barren land to the educated youth of the peasant families because they had inborn skills to make the barren land able to yield immense crop. Cultivable land if allotted to the deserving peasants had so far contributed heavily to the country’s economy and flourishment. Agriculture and industry are closely associated with each other. Agri products; sugarcane-cotton, canola and other manifold yields, require the installation of sugar industry, spinning industry, dyeing industry, farms apparatus industry, seed processing industry tube-well manufacturing industry etc. To further expatiate it means the cultivation of discarded land will boost the manifold industrial set-up, requiring immense manpower to run the industries, engaging brains of skilled and raw hand persons and policy makers. Prime Minister Imran Khan and his intelligentsia be quick to divert their attention towards discarded land to avail of every inch of that. A large chunk of unemployed squads and brains would be assimilated in the process of cultivations and management services and the inherent skills of youth will find positive way to ramify. Pakistan’s economy will get shoot up impetus and prop up glimmering boost. We will not only be self sufficient to satiate domestic needs but also be able to export our Agri products abroad and earn fabulous foreign exchange to further augment our economy and when the wheel of industry will go in circulation the unemployment will automatically be minimized even to be curtailed to the minimum.
Under land hidden precious natural resources must not be left undiscovered to go waste. Our previous governments preferred foreign companies to explore natural resources and after assigning the responsibility never cared to put check and balance system and let them go unbridled. Domestic companies must be awarded tenders to explore natural resources to engage inland manpower. It has been observed minutely that whenever any sane mind thought of distributing the discarded land to the deserving peasantry, an unknown powerful hand rebuked the political elite and the long devised schemes were put to oblivion. The discarded and un-utilized land should not be left for those, who had fixed their eyes on its distribution amongst their favorites. Nepotism is the cardinal feature of our political system but it must be discouraged and the eyes fixed on discarded land be repelled to make them believe that Pakistan is now free of corrupt practices and will sooner be free of corrupt elements and dynastic hegemony, who not only undermine public resources relentlessly but also make law and constitution helpless by their maneuvering tricks and play havoc with the law of the land and tranquillity and peacefulness of the nation. The writ of law and constitutional hegemony, be established and the manipulators against the state and nation be lawfully excruciated to their complete elimination from the very fabric of government structure and societal texture and Pakistan will surely emerge as rising illuminating blue moon amongst the strongest economies of the world.
—The writer is a freelance columnist and independent analyst based in Lahore.
