Moalims

According to the Pakistan Coalition for Education report, only 26 percent schools have access to clean drinking water and 57 percent do not have usable toilets. The availability of potable water is a basic necessity of life and a fundamental human right enshrined in the constitution and international conventions. Lack of clean drinking water, basic sanitation, toilets, etc, is a major cause of infant child and adult morbidity and mortality rates in the world.

One would ask our rulers (politicians/bureaucrats) that if their children were dying due to lack of basic necessities would they first provide their kith and kin with these necessities of life or spend scarce financial resources on luxuries. Surely one could have run buses on designated lanes by spending a fraction of the public money spent on luxurious metros. Our rulers should learn lessons from developed countries. We should learn lessons from countries like Sri Lanka, Cuba, etc, which have achieved excellent health outcomes by adopting rational pro-people – and not pro-elite – policies.

Dr Sabah A K Akhtar

Islamabad