The Caring Store — since 1913!

The army's Canteen Stores Department is now just another retail store catering to all comers.

Three matters will take us hither and yon this week. One, imagine my horror when I saw the latest advertising blitz of the CSD (Canteen Stores Department) a department of the Quarter Master General’s Branch of the Pakistan Army, which used to run shops (in cantonments) only for serving and retired officers and men. These shops offered, e.g., imported barathea uniform cloth for the once elegant service dress (complemented by the shining leather Sam Browne belt, not the girlie brocade sashes worn by today’s officers — the higher the rank the girlier the sash); some firearms; sporting goods; cheddar cheese made by army farms and suchlike. And in the good old days when hypocrisy had not taken over Pakistan completely, duty-free whisky. As an aside, I recall buying Yahya Khan’s favourite Black Dog at Rs67 a 24-ounce bottle from the CSD in Sialkot in 1966.

Two, across the border, the former air chief, air chief marshal (ACM) SP Tyagi had his home raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the equivalent of our own FIA, being suspected of involvement in bribery and corruption amounting to 50 million euros to do with India’s purchase of 12 Italian helicopters made by Agusta Westland, a subsidiary of the Italian giant Finmeccanica. According to reports in the press, CBI spokeswoman Dharini Mishra said, “He is one of the 13 people we have filed an FIR (First Information Report) against…the FIR filed on Wednesday represents the first stage of an official police enquiry’.

And last but not least, a hand for Shahbaz Sharif for his hard work and for proving that he was, by far, the best chief minister of any province of Pakistan during the past five years. You might disagree with him on many counts, such as I do, e.g., having the distasteful Rana Sanaullah by his side, but you cannot fault him for not trying his best to improve the lot of Punjab. In which, let us not be niggardly, he has succeeded to some good extent.

Whether it was combating dengue, or getting projects completed in record time, Sharif excelled in a milieu where mediocrity is the rule; where one or two of every 10 government servants actually do the jobs they are paid to do, in the way they should be done; where most of them are only along for the ride leaving the hard work to those of their colleagues who are honest of purpose, and who believe in pride of performance.

He provided leadership by being there himself: inspecting building sites and anti-dengue operations at all hours; visiting hospital latrines and personally cleaning clogged basins and drains to show that there is no shame in getting one’s hands dirty, thus forcing the bureaucracy to rouse itself out of its stupor.

I had occasion to work with him on the Doongi Ground fraud perpetrated on the province of Punjab and particularly on the people of Lahore in which the famous cricket ground in Gulberg II (along MM Alam Road) was converted into a future IMAX cinema and commercial building, the rent from whose shops would hopefully make up the losses sure to be run up by the cinema.

This is what I wrote in Dawn of December 30, 2008:

“SURELY everyone and Charlie’s aunt has heard about the Doongi Ground scandal? The one in which the government of Pervaiz Elahi tried…to convert (or in legal parlance, ‘change the use’ of) a park/playground to an entertainment centre containing an IMAX cinema?

“An IMAX cinema in Lahore you may well ask? In a city that cannot provide its inhabitants clean drinking water…where the poor far outnumber the rich who play on MM Alam Road…and where, in any case, the scheme of the Gulberg colony dating to the early fifties had Doongi Ground clearly marked as a green playground/park area?

“An IMAX cinema in any city of Pakistan, you would ask when there are very few films in the entire world in the IMAX format? When the ticket costs would be prohibitive for the vast majority of the citizens of the city? When there was, even when the project was (mis)conceived four years ago, not enough electricity in the country to run equipment such as that in an IMAX which needed humidity control and a temperature of 26 degrees Celsius all year round to merely stay in good repair in hot and humid Pakistan…something like Rs10m a month would be needed just to keep the damned thing running.”

My recommendation: Do not throw good money after bad; return the Doongi Ground to the children of Lahore; turn the whole matter over to a judicial tribunal which should prosecute those who played so wantonly with public funds.

The long and the short of it is that work was stopped; the Punjab Entertainment Company (wholly owned and financed by the Government of Punjab, I ask you) was disbanded and a sum of Rs500 million recovered. Note that 500 million had already been squandered on this criminal enterprise.

I found Shahbaz Sharif clear-headed and assertive, ensuring that a reluctant bureaucracy did what was right. I am sorry to report, however, that the bureaucracy has not allowed the findings of the excellent Farogh Naweed Report on this scandal to become public and/be implemented.

Now back to The Caring Store and the Indian air chief. Our CSD is now just another retail store catering to all comers: a commercial enterprise just like any other grocer, general merchant, or supplier. This is a crying shame, and only adds to charges that the army runs what are mainly money-making commercial concerns.

Hard on the heels of which comes the news that the GOP has quietly acquiesced to the army’s demands for more money, ending up slipping up to Rs687 billion into its coffers between 2009 and 2013. Well...

As to what has happened to ACM Tyagi, Ms Mishra’s counterpart in Pakistan should have been disappeared by now...the raiding sleuths of the FIA thrashed up and locked up in the nearest quarter guard and so on.

And, er, the CSD in India is still ONLY for the use of serving and retired personnel of the Armed Forces ...

P.S. Does The Caring Store pay taxes? Would ISPR care to comment?

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2013.