In order to further facilitate the public and speed up redressal of their grievances, the government plans to link up all complaint management systems of federal ministries with the Pakistan Citizen Portal. Prime Minister Imran Khan recently issued instructions in this regard. All existing 33 complaint cells of federal ministries will be connected with the centralised complaint system. The PM’s Performance Delivery Unit (PMDU) will decide the modalities in consultation with relevant institutions and devise integration plans. The PMDU has been asked to complete the process within 60 days. The idea is to avoid delays resulting from a multiplicity of complaint cells and duplication of efforts thereby undertaking the process of complaint rectification on a fast track basis. This will also save time and resources. The purpose is to put in place a universal system with many-faceted connectivity features for a comprehensive global grievance redressal mechanism.
The centralised system will help citizens avoid confusion as now a number of complaint cells are functioning causing problems to both the people and government functionaries working for redressal of public grievances. The integrated system will help eliminate the delays involved in manual processing of complaints. It will bring the whole process of receipt, processing, and removal of complaints under one window, and help citizens get information about the status of their complaints and things related to them. The PCP started functioning as part of the PMDU from October 2018. During the past two years, as many as 28 million people have registered 115,000 complaints, on average, every month, with it. According to official figures, 2.2 million complaints have been resolved with 40% confirmed satisfaction. The rural population might not be getting the facility of the online PCP because of the unavailability of internet services in villages and small towns. This needs to be rectified.
Jodhpur killing
Pakistani Hindus have begun protesting against the Jodhpur incident as well as the hardships faced by members of the minority community that migrated to India in search of a better life. The false dreams that many of them have are regularly shattered by the harsh reality of India’s still-strong caste system, which rarely allows lower-caste Hindus to rise. Many of the Pakistani Hindu migrants are from those lower castes. For this, they often end up having to wait for decades to be allowed to become citizens of a country that claims to welcome all Hindus.
Pakistan Hindu Council Patron-In-Chief Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani made a much more explosive claim that Indian intelligence agencies have been forcing Pakistani Hindu migrants and tourists to speak against Pakistan and even killing people who refuse to do so. As evidence, Vankwani referred to the last month’s case of 11 members of a family who died under mysterious circumstances in the Indian city of Jodhpur in Rajasthan. The family had moved there years ago, motivated by those same false promises of a better life in India. Instead, they ended up being poisoned in their home.
The case itself is interesting for the secretive manner in which India has acted. The family of subsistence farmers was clearly not spies, yet India has refused to share any investigation details with Pakistan or allowed access to the survivors, even though they all were still Pakistani citizens at the time they died.
Vankwani implied that this was because a surviving family member had nominated the RSS and the ruling BJP in the police report. He also noted that no arrests had been made in the case which is extremely concerning.
After decades of throwing accusations about the treatment of Hindus in neighbouring Muslim countries, India has shown that it is just as dangerous. We would think that now, at least New Delhi would try to show that it takes justice for dead migrants seriously.
Encouraging young entrepreneurs
The government is doubling down on its efforts to encourage young entrepreneurs through the Kamyab Jawan Programme, allocating Rs100 billion in the first phase. Scrutiny of applications has started, with a few hundred youths already given loans. We should know relatively soon which of the thousands of other prospective projects end up getting money. The government also claims that the programme will generate one million jobs for the burgeoning youth population. While the plan is well-intentioned and appears to have most of its parts in order, at least on paper, we will have to wait for quite a while to judge its success. This is because success is dependent on several external factors, some of which are not entirely in the government’s hands.
Still, the government is trying to do what it can by improving the ease of doing business and the cost of doing business — both things being major controllable external factors. At the same time, the positives of focusing on youth entrepreneurship and employment are undercut by the reality of the broader economic picture. Economic growth projections remain bleak, and the prospects of a spike in foreign investment remain low as long as the world economy is still in recovery mode. There is also the issue of the two targets of growth and employment not matching up very strongly with other goals.
The government is also making a strong ‘digital’ push. One thing we know about tech companies is that when they succeed, they make piles of money. Unfortunately, with a few rare exceptions, tech companies are not drivers of employment. For that, we need to focus on traditional labour-intensive industries for skilled and unskilled workers. That will be even more difficult than the more limited scope of youth-oriented projects, because it requires successful reforms and infrastructure development that encourage manufacturing. So far, the focus is only on CPEC, which will have knock-on benefits in other areas of the economy, but at the end of the day, these will be restricted to areas near the project route.
