Heart or the Mind ; Where do our Thoughts Originate

Heart or the Mind

Where Do Our Thoughts Originate

Dr Nasir Javed

Human beings are blessed that they can think. Psychologists say that in a normal day the number of thoughts is anything from 50,000-60,000. Most are repetitive, and many are new. Cognitive psychologists and neurologists believe that all this happens in the Brain or the Mind. However, there is a competitor in the body…. Our Heart.  Yes. The latest scientific research is gradually discovering that the real ‘conscious human being’ resides in the heart and may be that is also the seat of the human soul. And that is where our thoughts originate and perhaps reside. The mind is just a processing machine.  

Does this debate have any practical implication or is it just a theoretical research? The answer is yes, it has a practical aspect. A subsequent blog would attempt to show, how conscious thought management can lead to cure for many psychological & physical ailments. And a happy & successful life.

Human brain has more than 100bn specialized cells called neurons. The interaction and communication between these neurons process the intellectual functions and regulate the body functions.  Brain has a conscious mind and a subconscious mind…. But these aspects in a later blog.

The Heart itself has around 40,000 neurons within it and this is the main connection with the brain, with which it has a two way communications.  The traditional concept has been that brain regulates the functioning of the heart, which we were taught was just a mechanical pumping equipment. However, the latest research shows that there is more than this. It may be that the heart regulates the functioning of the brain.

Let me provide 3 pieces of evidence:

1: The Heart Develops 2 weeks before the Brain: In the embryo the heart starts beating in the 4^th week, while the brain develops in the 6^th week, thus showing that the heart is capable of functioning by itself. In human embryos the heart begins to beat at about 22-23 days, with blood flow beginning in the 4th week. The heart is therefore one of the earliest differentiating and functioning organs.[1]

3: Heart has a memory of its own:

Yes, the heart has a memory of its own, distinct from that in the brain. Let me share a true story, presented in an International Psychiatric Conference and verified independently.

The Heart That Found Its Body's Killer

‘’……. a psychiatrist came to the microphone during the question and …. struggled to speak through her tears…..

….she said, "I have a patient, an eight-year-old little girl who received the heart of a murdered ten-year-old girl. Her mother brought her to me when she started screaming at night about her dreams of the man who had murdered her donor. She said her daughter knew who it was.

After several sessions, I just could not deny the reality of what this child was telling me. Her mother and I finally decided to call the police and, using the descriptions from the little girl, they found the murderer. He was easily convicted with evidence my patient provided. The time, the weapon, the place, the clothes he wore, what the little girl he killed had said to him . . . everything the little heart transplant recipient reported was completely accurate." [2] (Published in the Book “ The Heart s Code”, by Dr Paul Pearsall )

2: Not only that it has a memory of its own, it has a very strong Electromagnetic Field that connects it with other human beings, with the EM Field of the earth and with the universal EM field.

The heart has an electromagnetic field which is 5000 times stronger than the brain and can be measured even 15 feet away from the body[3]. Thus every person has an electromagnetic field of around 15 ft radius. This electromagnetic field defines the ‘virtual body’ of a person. The electromagnetic (EM) field has the potential to interact with EM field of other individuals in the vicinity and also with the Universal energy field.

Another point to ponder is that thoughts not only originate in the heart but also ‘come from somewhere’… what the poets call ‘aamed’ , mystics call ilhaam, etc and all of us at some point in time must have felt. This also is the transmission medium for telepathy, clairvoyance and other Extra sensory perceptions.    In other words, we are all connected with a really BIG universal network, where the heart functions as the SIM Card. The disconnection of service results in death…. There could be numerous sources of networks that keep sending signals to our heart.

No wonder, why the Quran mentions heart at 133 times, while there is hardly any mention of the brain.  

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[1] https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Cardiovascular_System_-_Heart_Development

[2] P A U L P E A R S A L L , P h . D.; The Heart’s Code. Braodway Books, New York; 1999

[3] https://www.heartmath.org/resources/infographic/mysteries-of-the-heart/

Domestic Commerce: Out of City Retail Parks

Domestic Commerce:

Out of City Retail Parks

Dr Nasir Javed

As per the Bureau of Statistics Economic Survey 2018-19, the whole sale and retail services contribute around 18 percent of the GDP, almost as much as agriculture. It still has great potential for growth. A number of interventions can accelerate this growth.

While export oriented growth and foreign exchange reserves are vital for the economy, a much less emphasized & discussed sector is that of domestic commerce. A country with more than 220 millions of people offers a great opportunity for producing and selling domestically that would lead to value addition in goods & services and significant job creation.

Success of shopping malls like The Forum, Dolmen mall, Centaurs, Packages & Emporium etc in the large cities of Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and now even in smaller towns[1] (For example the Mall of Mandi Bahuddin… a 14 story complex in a town of less than half a million) is a proof of the growing demand for this kind of ‘shopping / eating / entertainment combo’. However, almost all of these malls are located on the most precious commercial city center areas, mostly occupied by top brands, that need to be air conditioned and have challenges of car parking & congestion in the neighborhoods.  Let’s take this ‘shopping / eating / entertainment combo’ to the open areas.

Pakistan is blessed with at least three strong factors for rapid growth in domestic commerce. One, a very large consumer base of 220 m with at least 50% living in rapidly growing urban areas. Secondly, for most regions of the country our population centers are located close by; forming clusters. The 3^rd factor is the 2000 km of functional Motorways & another 2000 km in the pipeline. These three factors, put together, make a strong case for a flourishing opportunity of domestic retail. This is how it can be leveraged: 

The motorways’ and the population clusters around Motorway interchanges offer a golden opportunity for establishing ‘Out of City Retail Parks’. The US, UK and many other countries have developed such parks which offer good attractions, especially over weekends. (The Cribbs Causeway Retail Park Bristol;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cribbs_Causeway). Compared to the west, we still have an advantage of the higher population densities and a large potential to reach a saturation point.  

http://www.cushmanwakefield.co.uk/en-gb/case-studies/2017/10/sainsburys-west-end-retail-park 

Along most of the built Motorways, we can have this kind of Retail Parks at almost every 200km.  The concept is that it should be located close to a Motorway Interchange, within a ‘days trip’ of the major cities / towns.  What we need is around 100-300 acres of land close to an interchange. Needed would be basic development of road network and plotting, into 1-3 acres plots, with ample paved surface parking, (paved with pavers like we have on the M2 interchange areas).

Development & Services: Connect the park area to the motorway. There would be large surfaces available for solar panels to generate local electricity. In most areas ground water can be provided. We can easily establish a small waste water treatment plant to make it fit for agricultural purposes for surrounding lands. Rain water could be saved and used for non drinking purposes, making the park a completely environment friendly green facility.

To reduce the ‘entry & exit barriers’, we can offer plots on 10-30 years lease to the retailers, provided they construct within a year. Sale and purchase of plots needs to be banned, to avoid getting investors and speculators into the market. Since it is usually single or double story construction, it could be pre-fabricated and quick to install.

The kind of stores: Clothing stores, factory outlets, furniture shops, handicraft stalls, door/windows and bathroom/kitchen accessory stores, super markets, farmer markets/ itwar bazaar, used car sale markets, car boot sale areas are some of the businesses that would jump to these places, being much less expensive than city center malls. Added would be food courts with outdoor (shaded & open) sitting areas. Even marriage halls can be built for nearby towns & villages.

In addition to the food court areas, there is a need to develop attractive public spaces, with ample free parking and free seating, where people can just sit & relax. On weekends and holidays; there could be other outdoor entertainment opportunities, like Street theater, Musical concerts, Outdoor movies, and much more. The entry would need good controls to provide security and avoid beggars and drug addicts. Shopping addicts would be welcome…. The architecture of the park and especially the entrance gates etc should be reflective of the regional & local culture and not bland western style.

For people who don’t have cars, comfortable buses could operate on regular basis from selected points of the cities in the region.  

Each park could generate up to 10,000 direct jobs and many more indirect jobs, with a significant contribution to taxes and GDP. Interestingly, most of the investment is private investment, with minimal burden on the public funds, with much higher returns.

Site selection is a bit of issue that requires careful planning. A spatial analysis using satellite imagery would help in locating the most appropriate sites. Criteria should be that the region (a circle of around 100km radius) should have adequate population; land suitability in terms of water source, cost of land and flood vulnerability etc. Roughly speaking we can have one between Lahore & Islamabad, and one between Islamabad & Peshawar. A very rough estimate has shown that there is around 15-25m population that would be benefited by each of these retail parks…..what a consumer market. Similar areas can be planned for rest of the motorways.

Who would do it: The federal Ministry of commerce has just one bullet point on domestic commerce, which says:

Domestic commerce reforms and development in collaboration with other Ministries, provincial and local governments.[3]

At the provincial level, the Board of Investment and Trade could be made responsible for this kind of intervention that requires a fair amount of fast track processing and management. Local governments would need to be taken on board, for provision of services, master planning and land use governance.

This proliferation of organized retail markets would have a trickle-down effect into smaller towns and rural areas, where retail marketing would be benefited, in terms of the quality of services.

In due course of time, there would be developing small private housing schemes for the people who would have jobs in these parks. Therefore it is important that planning for these areas around the parks be made in the original plan, to avoid mushrooming & slums.

All these interventions can be managed within 2-3 years, and we don’t need any IMF, donors or any huge public sector investments.

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[1] http://www.alasarmallmbdin.com/

[3] Government of Pakistan Rules of Business 1973

Narrowing the Tax Net

Narrowing the Tax Net

Dr Nasir Javed

Yes. I mean ‘Narrowing the tax net’… not broadening.

A teacher asked his class, what is a ‘Net’… The best answer was, ‘A large number of holes, tied together with many ropes’. In fact it’s the size of ‘holes’ that determines the efficacy of the net. If one wants to catch more fish, the holes are made smaller (narrow) and not wider. Making holes smaller, means putting some more ropes. In terms of Tax –Net, it means more data, data analytics and data integration.

There has been a plethora of discussion on bringing more tax payers into the FBR net and on documentation of the economy. Both these objectives are inter-related and require robust data. 

By tax I mean all kind of ‘public dues’… from water rate, to property tax, to provincial duties to all FBR dues.  We should target that everyone pays all such dues, user charges and taxes. 

Who is a tax payer? In general, taxes are either:

1.       Individuals (person based)  or

2.       Businesses (property based)

Almost all businesses (manufacturing, services, utilities etc) are ‘located somewhere’ in the country. So essentially all tax liabilities can be linked to either a Person or a Property.  

Now that we have documented almost all ‘persons’, under CNIC and NADRA data bases, what is needed is to ‘create a similar database of all properties in the country. This requires a ‘central property registry’. That means a comprehensive data base of all properties in the country, just like NADRA has a registry of persons.

And it’s a fairly simple process. The Bureau of Statistics Pakistan has a comprehensive coding system for population census that includes a Province code, a district Code, a tehsil Code and a Mauza code for rural areas and a block code for urban areas. Based on this coding system we can develop a computerized Map based code for ALL property units in the country…. Including all land parcels and all buildings, houses, flats, shops, industries etc. This code would be something like this:

Province		District			Tehsil				City		Ilaqa			Ward		Block		Street		Plot
1	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1

This registration and coding of properties would be prepared using Satellite Imagery linked GIS based maps, so that NO land parcel / property is missed. Since this is a Spatial Database, we can establish a younger sister of NADRA, called SIDRA. (Spatial Information & Data Registration Authority).

Now all business transactions and dealings with the Governments and their authorities & agencies, (Local, Provincial & Federal) must be linked to this PIN code. The Electricity connection and bills, Gas bills, ptcl, water, bank loans, mortgage, sale-purchase, SECP registration etc MUST include this PIN code in all documentation, permissions, NOC, licenses etc….. just like we use CNIC for all personal transactions.  

In Punjab, while computerizing the Urban Property Tax system, this kind of coding has been introduced for more than 4m property units, though currently being used for limited purposes. The SIDRA can easily replicate the system and achieve full documentation in a few years time.  Just like CNIC, the SIDRA should issue PIN Cards. (Property Identification Number Cards) and in addition provide every property owner, with a metallic plate of the PIN card to be affixed at the gate / door.

Once this is achieved, we now need to integrate the NADRA data base, with this SIDRA database and that practically means ALL government transactions and business dealings are documented and mapped.   So almost all databases and transactions and businesses would be comprehensively documented. Just imagine if an authority knew the location, area, use, utility bills, all business activities, kind of business, etc for each and every property in the country and that too mapped, providing innumerable data analytical opportunities. The data generated from all these data sets would provide excellent triangulation and cross checking that would make it very difficult to avoid any taxation. 

This system shall have other benefits as well, in regulating the land and property markets, eliminating fraud and embezzlement and improving revenues of local governments as well. Not only that but mapping and time series analysis of the businesses would help us achieve economic planning and evidence based policy making, including regional GDP and disparities.

Last but not the least, every property owner should be made to pay for the issuance of this PINC, so no loans or public funds are needed and only those would pay who can afford it.

PS:          The PIN Card is ONLY for Identification of property and would not be a replacement for ownership documents / Registration deed etc….in the beginning at least.

Going High Rise in Cities

Going High Rise in Cities

Dr Nasir Javed

The Prime Minister Imran Khan has directed the cities to save agricultural land from further urban development and focus on building high rise instead of urban sprawl.

In principle very good guideline for smart urban planning.

As in most cases, translating a policy principle into corresponding zoning & building regulations is a challenge. It is highly probable that without much expert advice or any kind of analytical work, the Local Governments and Development Authorities would amend the existing bye laws, relaxing the height restrictions in many zones across the city…. The result might be a bigger problem.

It is also probable that some experts and NGOs would start lobbying against this change in bye laws, and insisting on low rise developments, in the name of poor infrastructure, environment and culture. And one conclusion is for sure that both would be just lobbying, with little data or evidence.

The current blog doesn’t offer space for a detailed discussion on the subject, being a complex one and requiring much work. However, I would like to highlight just 2 relevant points.

1: The issue of urban services & utilities:                   The argument against going high is the lack of urban services and facilities, like road, water, sewerage, drainage and parks etc. Yes. That is a constraint. But in most cases of urban re zoning & redevelopment, the most critical constraint is that of road and mobility, especially in car based cities. All other services can be managed / upgraded.  

2: How to prioritize high rise zoning.  Currently the LDA regulations permit height on the basis of road width…. unfortunately not a very efficient formula. The solution is to link high rise zones with the routes of mass transit. The Orange line and the BRT lines have the capacity to carry thousands of passengers per hour. However, the most probable commuters on these lines are people who can walk to and from the BRT / OL stations, while commuting from their homes to offices / shops. The evidence suggests that if people have to take multiple vehicles (from home to stop, Speedo, BRT Speedo, walk etc), they are not likely to use the BRT.

Almost all over the developed world, areas within the walking distance of BRT stations are most expensive for this reason and are permitted mix use high density development. The Ahmadabad BRT lines are a classic example, where building bye laws were revised and within five to ten years, the entire landscape transformed into medium to high rise re developments. So did happen in Vancouver and in many other cities.

Lahore has more than 50 BRT/OL stations. Area within a circle of 0.4 -0.6km radius is the golden zone. What the LDA need to do is to carry out a survey of the existing land use for each of the zones around these stations and make a proposal for allowing upto no limit height constructions in this zone. Each of the 50 circles would need to be identified and selected as residential, commercial or mix use, depending upon the location and other factors of urban planning.  Each of these zones would be around a 1000 -2000 kanals, of which at least half could be built up area.

Thus we get a high Rise zone of almost 20 - 40,000 kanals of high rise mix use buildings. And the beauty of this development is that since it would be very close to these mass transit lines, would make passenger counts attractive and won’t cause as much car congestion, as would be if high rise are allowed across the city.

Last but not the least, government won’t have to spend money, as enhanced taxation on these lots should be more than enough to pay for the infrastructure upgrade. In fact, the real cost of infrastructure upgrade (the BRT & OL) has already been paid. Now is the time to reap dividends. Perhaps there would be hardly any need for new hosing colonies on green lands for a decade at least.

PS: This doesn’t preclude allowing other areas as medium to high rise zones, but their need would be limited and should be well planned.

 Jobs Creation Strategy:

Linking the Dots

Dr Nasir Javed

The Government had announced creating 10m jobs for the unemployed. Almost a year down the road, we hardly have any strategy or a plan, at least nothing has been stated. A few announcements here and there like Insaaf Rozegaar scheme, some run-of-the-mill loaning program in KP, BISP program, Skill development etc are there, but as they say, ‘business as usual shall lead to results as usual’. What we need is a well thought out comprehensive national level strategy and a well coordinated integrated program that makes a real dent in the unemployment and underemployment at the national level. A full scale game changer and not an NGO led pilot.

What we need is an innovative approach, using all the competencies and positives that we have, woven smartly into a comprehensive plan through a Strategy. What I call Linking the Dots. Dots that we already have and can compete globally and require minimum of government funds and encourage private investment.

Dot 1:         Data;  As is more often than not the case in Pakistan, we jump to the solution, without adequately defining the problem. So let’s first define the problem of unemployment / underemployment, before we suggest the solution. And here by defining the issue, I mean Data… i.e. numbers and geography. Who is unemployed and where is he/she. There are at least 3 sets of data needed to define the issue.

We need to who is unemployed, know what is their education, what is their skill set, where do they live, and what are they doing now and what are their aspirations.  How can we plan to create the jobs, in the absence of this data?

How do we get this data? The answer is let the people tell, and they would, as it’s their need. No traditional route of census, survey or consultancies.  Let’s use IT & Web. We need to create a National Database of Unemployed and underemployed population. This requires good software and a Form uploaded on a website, where everyone can enter his/her data. The unique key would be the CNIC number to avoid duplication. Entry Forms should be in English as well as in Urdu and even in Sindhi & other regional languages. For illiterate people, some one can enter data on their behalf, provided CNIC of the verifying person is also entered to ensure correctness of data.

We can complete the database, in less than 3 months, using aggressive marketing through electronic & social media. Government only needs to develop the software and maintain a team for data maintenance.  

We can develop all kind of analytics based on this data, to see how many unemployed we have, along with statistics on education, skills, age, sex, & geographical location up to Tehsil  level. Looks strange in this era of communications, but the fact is NO Government agency has this kind of figures…. Only guess work.

Once these analytics are available, we can have geographically and thematically targeted job creation strategies.

2nd Dot:     Vacancies available, both in the public as well as private sector. The second portal we need is the Vacancies Portal. ALL government jobs must be advertised on this portal, and this would ensure widest publicity and the unemployed won’t miss a chance, as currently the employer may advertise in any of the newspapers, making  it difficult to keep a track of the opportunities. Similarly all registered private companies, firms, industries be bound to advertise on the portal, though they would be free to hire and select as per their liking. But the portal would help us develop accurate data about supply & demand.

3rd Dot:           Supply side data:             We all know that one of the reasons for unemployment is the very serious and significant mis-match between the graduates being produced and the jobs available.

So, another portal should require that all educational and skill development institutions, both in the public as well as in the private sector offering, degree, diploma and certificate level programs and their yearly enrollment data should be entered yearly.  This shall help us coordinate the future jobs and the expected new entrants into the job market and for making evidence based policies & strategies.  

4th Dot:      Identify Niche Market:  Let’s focus on one of the sectors. Our Handcrafts potential in the country. This is our competitive advantage, as we have a large rural population and there are hundreds of skills in handcrafts, many of which are unique to us. Starting in the south from Tharparker to the Northern FATA, every district has a unique product. Some examples being Brass work, leather products, wood carving, bamboo baskets, carpets, embroidery, jewelry, salt lamps, truck art decorations etc. This potential has never been utilized to the full rather many of these arts are dying because of lower returns. Let’s develop this sector through an integrated, innovative & aggressive approach.

 Yes, we know that even now, many of the websites, NGOs, and even government programs are supporting these handicrafts, but the scale is very limited and not likely to create a national level impact.  What we need is innovation in approach. This is the area, where are already have a critical mass of skilled workforce with limited competition, even globally. Here is a portfolio of products that have reasonably high rates of return, even now. With added quality assurance and better designing, packaging & marketing  we can take these returns to a still higher rate.

5th Dot:      Pak Handcraft Marketplace       What the government needs to do is to provide a platform, where the products are marketed and sold across the world. The internet provides an ideal platform. Let the Government sponsor the establishment of a platform like Amazon Marketplace. This is one of the many components of Amazon and here private entrepreneurs sell directly to customers while Amazon is just a connecting platform, providing services.  Another example is the Uber & Careem, where all investment in cars is private and they provide a connecting platform. So the handcraft marketplace (www.PakHandicraft Market.com) would provide a similar platform. The artisans would be producing the products and selling on the Marketplace by themselves or through a large number of entrepreneurs, kind of SMEs.

6th Dot:      Skill Improvement of Artisans  We also need to improve the design and quality of our handicrafts to compete with other countries, like India, Thailand, Vietnam and others. This would require a team of designers and master trainers. We need to use both physical training at skill development centers and TV for lessons. Professionally made training videos in Urdu & regional languages and played extensively on TV would certainly be helpful. Since there would be a demand & competition for quality, these trainings could be provided by the private sector, with some facilitation by Govt.

7th Dot:      Entrepreneurs:                  At universities, we are just producing ‘employees’. Let’s produce entrepreneurs. We need a whole new generation of young entrepreneurs, trained in e-commerce and facilitated through loans and incentives and connected on the PakHandicraftMarketplace. This training program needs innovation. In addition making it as a part of university / college curricula, the  lessons developed be placed on the net, as well as on a special TV channel that should just be teaching people, how to use the marketplace and how to sell the products. This TV channel /s should be telecasting these lessons in all languages.  TV is such a powerful medium of education and we are not using it.

8th Dot:      Marketing Network:      We also need to develop a team of professional marketing agents, working for the entrepreneurs & artisans, trained in e-marketing, producing high quality marketing tools and products for the World. This would create numerous jobs / businesses for young graduates.

9th Dot:          Supply chains.  Once we launch this program, we need to ensure that raw materials & allied products and services are available in abundance. Once a comprehensive & integrated supply chain, from the production of the raw materials, to manufacturing, packing, shipping, marketing etc is developed, there would certainly be many allied jobs giving the program a multiplier effect.

10th Dot:       Safeguards:       We would need to develop a feedback mechanism from customers, to ensure that our exporters don’t cheat and quality is maintained. This is easy to do on an e-commerce platform, where customers post their feedback.

Handicraft sector be made tax free for at least five years. No GST & no Income Tax.

The beauty of this program is that almost all the investment would be made by the private sector and by small investors. We really don’t need billionaires to invest, rather a very large number of small SMEs spread across the country, would sum up to billions of dollars. These entrepreneurs and network once created and trained, would be able to diversify into other products.

Japan, Thailand, China and Vietnam all had developed One Village One Product type programs and are earning billions of dollars in exports. Why can’t we? Yes, we also started a program by the name of AHAN (Aik Huner, Aik Nagar), a few years ago. But it is just another typical government project, and has made hardly any impact. In fact the website is one of the most pathetic ones and the company is close to bankruptcy, as per latest audit reports. (www.ahan.gov.pk).

We can develop similar programs for other sectors also, provided we have the data and of course the will.

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Public Transport in Karachi, The Promises of Bus system

Dr Nasir Javed

A few days ago, there has been a yet another announcement for brining in thousands of buses on the Karachi roads. In the last five years or so, we have seen at least half a dozen public statements, by the provincial ministers and at times by the federal government. In fact, as way back as 2012 perhaps, the Federal PSDP had an allocation of around 8bn for brining in 8000 CNG buses for Karachi, which never arrived. In each case, the Government allocates funds for the purchase of buses, and operations in the public sector. In a few instances, the project did not take off, as the price negotiations failed, for reasons not difficult to guess.

Now, the issue is how to solve this riddle. In my opinion, the Government should not ‘purchase’ buses, rather should leave this to the private sector. One thing that always baffles me is the direct role of ‘operator’ that the Government assumes, and starts running services. Whereas in almost all trading services, where consumers are supposed to pay, the operations should be left to the private sector and the government should regulate the service and may subsidize, if needed.

In case of public transport, if the private sector can provide thousands and thousands of trucks and trailers for transport of goods across the country and even beyond, freely available to the citizens, why is it impossible for it to invest in public transport? The reason is that government tries to regulate the routes and fairs and this leads to chaos, as we see in Karachi. The issue is one of public policy.  

The Solution: The Government should strengthen the department of public transport, with the right kind of professionals, data and IT tools. The department should carry out a comprehensive survey of potential bus routes in the city. With the use of mobile apps and social media, it should not take more than a couple of weeks to come up with a reasonable good quality of data that can help us map the routes. Just for clarity, in most of the cities of this kind, there are usually hundreds of routes and thousands of buses. For example, Shenzhen in China has around 19 Metro Light Rail lines, and around 20,000 buses on 1100 routes. The thumb rule is to have one bus for every 2000 of population. By this formula Karachi needs around 8-10,000 buses.

Once the routes are mapped and numbered, the private sector be invited to run the buses on these, after conducting auction of the routes. Every route would have different financial feasibility, depending upon the area and passenger load. The government should fix the fare for all routes, on a per km formula.  Since the objective is to provide high quality AC buses across the city, and to keep the fare affordable, there would obviously be need for a subsidy. The basis of auction of the routes would be the amount and level of subsidy asked for each route.  The operator asking for the least subsidy gets the route. This of course would be subject to some feasibility study and a benchmark figure.

The department should have a Video wall and IT based monitoring system of every bus movement, using commercially available trackers. This shall ensure that the operator runs the buses as per schedule and covers the full route. Mobile Apps and technology be used for public facilitation and information.

As a rough estimate, operating an AC bus within city costs around 150PKR /KM and an average bus covers around 200km / day. Now assuming that we start with 2000 single Deck AC buses in Karachi, the per day running cost is Rs 30,000/ bus. This includes all operational expenditure, and cost of capital and return on equity and operator s profit etc. This makes almost Rs 10m / bus per year, assuming a slightly reduced operation on holidays. A total of 2000 buses would cost us 20bn rupees per year, providing high quality affordable transport to millions of passengers.  Now assuming that the fare can recover at least half of it, the government needs a subsidy of just around Rs 10 bn / year; actual to be decided on the basis of auction.  Is this too much for 2000 AC buses?

As a policy, we should encourage the local manufacturers to upgrade their facilities and provide us with high quality buses, comparable to imported ones. This would further boost our industry and employment. If can imagine the public benefit of these 2000 buses in Karachi, which later on can be increased to 8,000 in over say a period of five years, so that we can significantly reduce the traffic load and pollution. And all investment would be private, with of course loans from the banks, which should discourage car loans and prefer public transport.

What we need is right kind of public policies and private sector investments and operations, and empower the Government to act as regulator and not operator, that takes ages to just purchase buses.

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