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| Print | Induction of 3-G technologies: Why change-over is important ENGINEER TAHIR BASHARAT CHEEMA
ARTICLE (December 03, 2010) : Technology has always played a big role in our lives. Besides, it also places the users of new technologies on a vantage point. Access to the latest ensures strong, viable and vibrant economies. It is because of this very fact that 3-G technologies for the cellular world are being touted as the next tomorrow and a clear-cut change from today. Similarly, as the dividends are expected to be huge, the license of 3-G systems in India mopped-up over Rs 67,000 crores or Rs 670 billion for the state. Imagine, the dividends in case the latest is adopted in more than one or in all of the sectors. In Pakistan, most of the sectors have stagnated and can only thrive on new technologies and nothing else. These would be the water and power, petroleum and natural resources, science and technology (the name itself leads us to the realm of technologies), health, agriculture, environment, defence, housing, the Planning Commission, industries and production, communications and a few others, including textiles etc. However, even a little insight would reveal that the current technologies being employed in these sectors, barring a few, are unfortunately first generation and the ones introduced as way back as in the sixties. And the sad part is that conversion to the latest is not being contemplated, at least, in the immediate future. Communications, and especially cellular telephony, is an exception, as even the 1-G technology in vogue looks futuristic for Pakistan. As to what would happen at the availability of 3-G technology is for the seers to project. Explaining the issue, we see that the water and power sectors are using what was the best in the 1960s and at the best 1970s, where after it seems to have stagnated. Consequently, these sectors are inefficient and cost ineffective. Visit an oil or a gas well in Pakistan and you would be immediately transported to the 1900s US oil industry. This is the reason, why the gas production is plummeting and oil suppliers are not increasing; gas utilities are beset with UFG issues and compressors that are unable to supply gas at the right pressure. Science and technology activity depends upon labs and facilities for continuing R&D. Both are missing in Pakistan. Go to any health facility and it soon dawns upon you that the best of the research and ensuing fruits simply allude us. Imagine, local research on cheap drug for hepatitis being ignored, while the poor cannot pay for the expensive imports. In agriculture, Bt seeds are just begging to find favour, while 40-55% of precious water is being lost

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before it reaches the crops. And the yields have stagnated around the levels achieved nearly half a century ago (the reason why 1960s is considered as a golden era). Environment is in a sorry state and the carbon footprint increases by the day and may even surpass that of the developed world for bigger of the cities. Unfortunately, none of the clean technologies have been introduced in Pakistan. Coming over to defence, there seems to be some exception in defence production, while 3-G technologies in defence systems are far away. R&D, on the other hand, does not form a part of our psyche and copying or reverse engineering is considered to be the best we could do. Housing, on the other hand, is as rudimentary as ever. The style and designs being adopted are not suited for us and are a source for great losses in the shape of very high power requirements. As the cost of construction materials is increasing day by day, non-use of new and third generation technologies is bound to make housing in the country cost prohibitive. It may also result in us not being able to meet with the basic needs of the people. Industrial sector: It is in a bad shape with trite and old shop floors, machines that are a relic of the yesteryears and those which are gas guzzlers - producing just one unit where the shop floors in the developed countries would quadruple. According to experts, our industries use up to 38% extra power in comparison to the latest models and consequently has made our industry incompatible. Communications, on the other hand, are a mix of the best and the worst. It would have been the same as other sectors, but for the fact that cellular technology, like water, made its own way and also ensured sustainability due to extremely less operating expenses for mobile technology. The profits are so much in this sector that the pay back for the equipment/infrastructure is a mere one year or so. The world has changed and new cutting edge technologies have simply broken all barriers in improved efficiency and productivity. Ten times production has taken place of the earlier slow behemoths and so on. Clean technologies arrange for the smallest of the carbon footprints and a sustainable future, which unfortunately is missing in Pakistan. And the additional advantage of all these cutting edge technologies is that a regular R&D activity works concurrently. In other words, the available prowess at the disposal of the developed world will get multiplied each year, thus taking it far away from the less developed areas of the world. And consequently, the less developed world would need much effort and time to just catch up, what to speak about going any further. Because new technologies arrange for increased productivity and much less cost of doing business for the sector concerned, it can safely be concluded that in the absence of any worthwhile effort to access the same, a country like Pakistan can never compete and nor be able to take care of the needs of its population. By and by, it would be marginalized and become a near basket case. The national advantage it has in the shape of agricultural productivity, on account of the Indus basin and the 150-year-old biggest canal system of the world, would disappear. Incidentally, had the British not set up the colony districts and the canal system is place during the late 19th and the early 20th centuries - a technological marvel then, the advantage we have now would never have been available. Similarly, as no new mega dams and allied reservoirs are available to the country after Tarbela's commissioning in 1976, the advantage of Mangla and the Tarbela mega reservoirs is also diminishing at a fast pace. All in all, absence of 3-G technologies would render us incompetitive.

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In view of the foregoing, Pakistan as a considered public policy should attract the latest in technology from all over the world. It can take the leaf out of the Indian and Israeli experiences. While China till recently has been content to be the factory of the world, both India and Israel are the laboratories churning out new patents at a great speed. Organisations, like the National Productivity Organisation (NPO) the Engineering Development Board (EDB), Enercon, Ministry of S&T, Planning Commission, Defence Production Division of the MoD, Wapda, PAEC, MoI, Ministry of Textiles, Ministry of Water and Power, Minfa, Ministry of Information Technology, and the Ministry of Communications will have to change and also attract professionals/sectoral experts in quest of new and the much needed technologies under a sustainable programme. We would have to leap frog and quickly access 3-G technologies in all fields. And we must understand that the age of the generalist is long gone and the super specialist would have to be given his due. In case, the change is not made, Pakistan's economy cannot keep pace with the requirements. Copyright Business Recorder, 2010

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