Geographical disparity and inhabitants of high altitude areas – By: Prof. Rahmat Karim Baig
Our country has been endowed with a large variety of climatic zones by nature. It is so generously granted to us that we have hardly felt its importance. The lower parts of the country get very hot summers as well as rich and fertile lands fed by the river system that emanate from the glaciers in the north of the country. Thus the north of the country provides more than enough water for the crops in the plains of Punjab and Sindh and they produce all kind of cereals in exportable amount. It is an unlimited blessing of Allah Almighty but we hardly realize its high value.
The North Pakistan is the treasure of Liquid Gold ( water ) and beside providing huge amount of water to the plains it has got manageable sites for hydel power and the under construction dams will generate enough power to the national grid.
Since the high altitude regions of the country are all mountainous and preserve snow in the form of glaciers so the region is very cold most of the year. This cold does not allow time for double crop a year. Chitral, GB, Kohistan and major higher parts of Malakand and Hazara division come under one crop a year zone and thus the inhabitants of these mountainous regions get poor yield from agriculture but the CBR has never thought of the geographical condition of these very cold districts.
I, therefore, demand that the ONE CROP A YEAR DISTRICTS must be exempted from any kind of taxation. Also that there must be a provision to the One Crop a Year areas a FOOD SUBSIDY system, quite on the pattern when essential food items were provided on subsidized rate in the 70s when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was the prime minister and Chitral benefitted from this for many years.
The people of the cold and snow bound areas should be declared special ZONES and given relief to alleviate their poor standard of living. This is a natural demand and has good reasons under geographical condition of the areas concerned. The communication system to the said Zone must be given priority and improvements have to be made to mitigate the miseries of the population living in the special Zones.
Prof. Rahmat Karim Baig
