The mandate of bureaucracy

LAHORE: Double standards in service delivery are visible all around as we see departments maintaining localities inhibited by the rich immaculately, while the slums even on the periphery of these localities remain infested with filth.

Governance in provinces has greater impact on the lives of the public, than governance at the federal level, as most public delivery institutions work under provincial domain. However, they continue to fail to deliver, remaining as lethargic as ever.

The well maintained high official residences or posh localities amply prove that these departments have the capability to provide better services.

Bureaucracy in all the four provinces is duty bound to take action even on petty issues that could reduce public hassles. Still issues like encroachment, bursting sewerage lines, and broken roads are scattered across all major cities of the country.

Conditions in rural areas are even worse. Provincial governments, responsible for providing these facilities to all citizens, only focus on people living in posh localities of cities.

Delivery of services, from well-illuminated streets to road infrastructure and hidden amenities, remains in shambles.

Illumination fades with the status of the locality, with slum dwellers facing complete black out at nights. In the same way, road infrastructure in localities inhibited by the rich is of high standard, while slums have no roads, while less well-to-do neighbourhoods have very narrow roads in bad condition.

Sewerage flows on the roads for years in slums and poorer localities, while the streets and roads in rich localities remain clean.

Areas inhabited by the richer segments of the society have green belts and lush green playing fields for their children. But the playing grounds reserved for the residents of poor neighbourhoods become the dumping grounds for waste.

All these facilities are provided by different departments of the provincial governments. These departments look the other way when sales of explosives, decanting of LPG cylinders take place in low income localities.

You would not find a decanting shop at The Malls in Lahore or Rawalpindi. Fire caused by decanting has taken many lives in all big cities of the country. Perhaps the risk to the life and property of the poor is not a priority for those in power.

Different sets of bureaucracy seem to get appointed in high income localities vs low income ones.

Swindlers throng particular markets in all major cities, but they are given free hand by the provincial and district administration. For instance it is an open fact that Montgomery Road Lahore is flooded with swindlers that supply car accessories of low quality at very high price to the motorists.

They have encroached on both sides of Montgomery Road by setting up their small vending stalls in front of the main shops.

They outnumber the shopkeepers and use strong-arm tactics if any of the shop owners of the market objects to their setting up of stalls. The administration watches the swindling of car owners silently and does not even act on the complaints of the shopkeepers.

The quality of edibles is much superior in posh markets (where rich can pay any price demanded by sellers) and as the affluence reduces so does the quality.

In slums, we may find rotten fruits and vegetables and even those are out of reach of the poor. We find vendors selling substandard edibles outside schools in poor localities. These vendors dare not offer the same items outside schools that charge hefty fees.

The authorities would in fact not allow them to go near these schools. We do not find quacks establishing clinics in colonies of high ranking government servants or in rich neighbourhoods, but they are in abundance in poor localities and slums.

In many cases they scare away registered doctors. Sporadic raids do not deter them. At the most, they shift their clinic to some other location in the same area and duly inform their patients who had more faith in them than registered doctors.

Lapses in governance lower the business perception of entrepreneurs. The responsibility of improving governance should be shared equally by all public servants.

The bureaucracy has to play its due role in ensuring that the prices remain stable, the general public gets a fair deal, and violators of rules are apprehended. Their action would pave the way for reduced rates of edible oil, rice, vegetables, and poultry items and improve public service delivery.