The Punjab Cabinet in its first major policy meeting has laid out an ambitious plan to introduce reforms in some of the most important sectors - health, police and local bodies. Good governance is believed to be ensured when authority is divided and responsibility is passed on to factions created to make the tasks more achievable. This is exactly what the new Punjab government has in plan for the local body system in the province. The local body government, elected by the people, will be in charge of the administrative matters. This step is likely to help the government complete the development projects that it takes on.
Another pressing concern that the government is willing to address is the crippling health sector of Pakistan - where the public hospitals lack proper facilities and the private ones are too expensive for the people to be able to afford. The country is in need of a better health care system - one that does take into account the affordability factor of the people. Plans such as a “Sehat Insaf Card” (Health Insaf Card) offering poor families free healthcare facilities up to Rs500,000 a year sound like promising initiatives.
While we must commend the new government for coming up with such an elaborate plan for the province, it is also necessary that the government first takes into account the projects and initiatives which are already working. A lot of resources will be saved if we improve on the current setup and then move towards new initiatives. This is so because successive governments have come into power and have introduced their own agenda but that agenda only lasts five years and another government comes in with an entirely different plan that they can call their own.
At the same time, the government would need the groundwork to be able to implement their policies. Their concern for the people and their betterment can only be effectively addressed if experts are brought on board to deal with the problems at hand. Another important policy that will allow the government the space to materialise its policies is to work towards lessening the tensions in the province. With such a narrow margin, both parties need to come to the table to actually get some work done. It will be next to impossible to achieve these goals with such hostility at play.