Pebble In the Pond: an approach To Regional Development In Balochistan and Sindh

Balochistan and Sindh are resource rich provinces, yet, both rank below par on national development scales. The state of affairs is not because governments have, over the decades, failed to invest in development. Rather, there have been a surfeit of schemes, with provincial development programmes loaded with hundreds of schemes carried forward (referred to as ‘throw forward’), and scores of new ones added each year. Ironically, this is the problem!

A major structural factor in underdevelopment is the multiplicity and dispersal of rural and quasi-urban settlements, each subsisting in low level socioeconomic developmental equilibrium, and each hemorrhaging fiscal resources in the name – rather, pretense – of development. In other words, there are too many fragmented schemes across too many sectors, and too many locations.

Accordingly, this book is an attempt to identify, on the basis of objective criteria, clusters of rural and urban settlements, and key settlements within the cluster with the capacity to act as engines of development. The exercise involving economic analysis and application of geo-spatial technology has led to the identification of 20 cities in Sindh and 14 in Balochistan and 153 rural settlements in Sindh and 165 in Balochistan as potential growth centres.