Infrastructure of Pakistan

The infrastructure in Pakistan has made some progress over the last five decades. However, compared to other similar countries, the rate of improvement in Pakistan has been among the slowest for the majority of public infrastructure sectors.[1] Pakistan’s transportation infrastructure has suffered from government neglect. Infrastructure is a backbone of the economy and a well developed infrastructure is not only important to attract foreign investment, it also needed to maintain high growth rate but Weak infrastructure has been one of the major factors restricting Pakistan’s economic growth and damaging its investment prospects.[2]

Today, Pakistan is a low-middle-income country with about  241.5 million people that not only places abysmally in the human development index but also faces both rural and urban disparities in poverty, income and development infrastructure.[3]

Pakistan’s infrastructure is underused because the economic boom it was meant to trigger has never arrived. Over the past three years, the government has successfully staved off a balance-of-payments crisis, achieving some measure of macroeconomic stability.[4] The comparatively poor infrastructural situation of Pakistan by international standards has a severe effect on the lives of people. The electricity shortages, lack of proper water and sanitation provisions. Above all, the increase in population to an alarming level is making our problems worse. The Government of Pakistan and its people face an uphill battle against poor infrastructure. According to the World Economic Forum Survey (2006-07) of 125 countries, Pakistan ranked 67th in the basic infrastructure category. Historically, a continual imbalance between demand and supply of infrastructure facilities is seen. In The Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) 2012-2013, released by the World Economic Forum, Pakistan is graded among the bottom 20 of the 144 economies around the world. Pakistan lacks a long-term view of competitiveness in accordance with this report.[5]