PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa may have attained self-sufficiency in revenue generation due to the comparative advantage in some industrial sectors, but the dearth of capital hampered industrialisation in the province, a researcher said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the public defence of her PhD, Neelofar Asghar said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was poorest among the four federating units despite availability of hardworking labour force, capital and raw material.
The topic of Neelofar, a research scholar at the department of Political Science, was “Unequal Development in a Peripheral Capitalist State: A Case Study of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan (1947 - 1977).”
She said the federation of Pakistan based on the India Act of 1935 became a highly centralised federal system relegating provinces to own 30 percent of their resources. “The federation is conglomerate of diverse federating units representing a federal society, which must be represented in the federal government authentically,” she added.
A federal system is not just about bicameral legislature, but an empowered Senate, she said, adding, the federal system is more about equal power -sharing in resource allocations, revenue generation, institutional and political representation.
The researcher believed legitimacy of the Constitution should be ensured through fair and equitable distribution of resources. Unequal development is neither an attribute of ethnic, linguistic or racial factors, nor a result of petty bourgeois discontentment institutionally; it is engendered due to centralisation of resources in core areas, she maintained.
“National integration and national security are critically affected by lack of human development and social security, which reflects a disconnect between the federal state and federal society,” she said in her research.
The researcher said the marginalisation and peripheralisation of the province is neither due to the poverty of its human resources, nor the poverty of its natural resources, but the poverty of national ethos.
“The main factor of economic productivity, labour force is outsourced from the region for the lack of opportunities as the Pakhtun labourers constitute 52 percent of the total labour force in Karachi, Punjab 46 percent, and even 3 percent to Balochistan. This reflects a lack of economic opportunities, unemployment and underemployment in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” she argued.
The researcher said the 1973 Constitution established federal parliamentary system in the country. The Senate, however, is without any powers unlike US Senate which has a veto power over the money bills.
The researcher said the quasi federalism, with the dominance of population in National Assembly controlling the budget as well as NFC award based on 82percent population, 10pc poverty, 5pc revenue generation and 2pc area tilts towards centralised federation.
Neelofar Asghar said agriculture is provincial subject while federal list is the debilitating factor controlling the main revenue resources; gas, water, electricity, forests, mineral, railways, corporations, industries to be decided by the Council of Common Interests (CCI).
Agriculture being the backbone of the economy received tremendous public sector support to enhance productivity by subsidising private sector. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, however, was bereft of most of these subsidies; financial, technical and resource allocations. Conservation of water resources through Tarbela and Chashma Right Bank Canal played a major role.
The province, during the period of analysis, lost acreage of cultivated area as well as productivity of crops. Lack of modernisation and mechanisation are linked to lack of water availability along with dearth of funds.
