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Old Wednesday, May 13, 2009
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For a new transport policy


Changes in society and the economy have created the demand for different modes of transport. The situation is highly dynamic and requires both analysis and action by policymakers.


By Shahid Javed Burki
Tuesday, May 12, 2009



IT is always useful to reflect on history before planning for the future. I will illustrate this point today by using the case of the transport infrastructure. Three legacies must be recognised to deal with the situation as it exists today and for the adoption of a strategy that would serve the future.
The British, when they constructed the transport system in the area which is today’s Pakistan, had in view an entirely different set of objectives. They wanted the transport system to quickly move troops to the geographical areas that had caused trouble for them as they sought to consolidate their control over the northwestern part of their domain.

Railways were the best form of transport for this purpose. They could transport heavy equipment relatively cheaply to pass through geographical corridors that were not too difficult to protect. Initial costs would be high but so would the returns if the areas the railways reached could be made secure for British rule.

The second British strategic interest was to supply the food-deficit areas in the northeastern part of their Indian domain with the food it needed. These provinces had suffered a number of famines in the 19th century and had caused a heavy loss of life. The British, remembering the 1857 war, were always sensitive to security concerns. They did not want another uprising on their hands produced by hunger. Accordingly, they invested heavily in developing Punjab to produce food grains for the food-short provinces in the east.

They also invested in constructing a network of market towns that could accumulate the surpluses produced, and in building a road and railways network to transport the surplus from Punjab to the northeast. This part of the transport network connected the northwest to the northeast. It was much more extensive in the distance it covered. A railway organisation that went by the name of the North-Western Railway, the NWR, was the backbone of the system.

The third inheritance from British rule was the assumption that the population in what is Pakistan today had neither the wish nor the need to travel long distances. Most of the people lived on the land and if there was need to travel it was to the market towns or, at most, to the administrative centres. By putting in place a highly decentralised system of governance, the British administration reduced the need for travel to a distance of a few miles from the place of residence. These requirements could be easily satisfied by the use of animal-drawn carriages moving mostly on dirt roads.

As against this, the population of what was to become India after independence was relatively more mobile. Those who practised India’s many different faiths wished to perform pilgrimages to various holy sites. This meant that the state had to facilitate the movement of hundreds of thousands of people over long distances. Once again railways served the purpose with the difference that they had to cater not only to the movements of the goods and commodities but also a large number of people. Unlike the Pakistani system, the transport system that supported economic and social life in India was much more complex.

To these legacies, Pakistan added two im peratives of its own to develop the system of transport. The partition of British India resulted in one of the largest movement of people in human history. Within a period of a few months around mid August 1947, some 14 million people moved in and out of Pakistan. Eight million Muslims came from India to Pakistan and six million Hindus and Sikhs went in the opposite direction. Most of the people went on foot but a large number also moved by train. Once the migration was over, there was a dramatic change in the geographical distribution of population.

Before 1947, what is now Pakistan had only one urban pole — the well-appointed city of Lahore. Now there were two; the other, Karachi, having been chosen as the capital of the country, developed quickly and in four years overtook Lahore in size. Two large urban centres, with a combined population of about five million out of a total of 40 million, needed transport to ferry people back and forth.

This was the case especially since the new additions to Karachi’s population came not only from India but also from the northeastern and northwestern parts of the new state of Pakistan. Karachi needed workers to build new offices, to run its industry and to serve its rapidly growing population. A large number of them came from the northern areas of Punjab, from Azad Kashmir and from the NWFP. These people did not initially bring their families with them to Karachi; they commuted from the capital to the places of their origin. They used the railways for this purpose.

The second important change that had a bearing on the sector of transport was the dramatic reorientation in Pakistan’s trade that occurred soon after the country became independent. In 1949 India declared a trade war against Pakistan and the latter had to quickly find new trading partners to survive. With this change Karachi, the port, rather than Lahore, the railway hub, became the epicentre of trade and finance.

While Lahore was the main trading centre for decades before independence, it surrendered this place to Karachi after inde pendence. Commerce through Lahore was dominated by railways. Commerce centred on Karachi became multi-modal involving shipping and road haulage. Since a significant quantity of bulk imports and heavy machinery were needed by the rapidly growing industry in Karachi, haulage over short distances was better done on roads than by railways. At the same time, the main trading corridor pivoted from north to east (from the granaries of Punjab to food-deficit areas in Bengal and Bihar) to north to south (from Karachi to the Punjab). This was a major transformation with which Pakistan is still learning to cope.

Other changes in the economy and society affected the demand for different modes of transport. The capital was moved from Karachi to Islamabad. This created a new urban community with a different set of demands for transport. The two wars in Afghanistan — one in the 1980s, the other still going on — have created new logistics demands.

The current war requires road corridors for supplying American and Nato troops operating in Afghanistan. This demand by foreign troops is also bringing into being new types of transport firms. The situation in other words is a highly dynamic one, one that requires both analysis and action by those responsible for making public policy. ¦
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