The Tharparkar District in Sindh is in an area of about 22,000 square kilometres of the Thar desert. People living in Tharparkar and about 2,300 of its surrounding villages belong to some of the poorest communities in Pakistan. The lack of infrastructure and human development in the Thar desert region makes life for its residents even more challenging.
Tharparkar’s economy relies on agriculture, but the people of Thar have to contend with occasional periods of drought, which is a recurring problem in this very arid and hot part of the country. Droughts in the region often bring along extreme poverty, food insecurity and limited access to basic services.
Currently, the Mirpurkhas division, which comprises Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Sanghar and Tharparkar, has no advanced medical education or research facility to train local doctors or health workers. This is despite the region’s harsh desert climate, high poverty and alarming malnutrition and child mortality rates. This means those seeking education or treatment must travel to the next nearest location, which is both financially inaccessible and difficult to travel to. In such difficult conditions, education becomes a distant dream for many students, especially those from poor and marginalised families.
A medical university is essential to train local youth in modern medical sciences, help retain doctors in the region, strengthen maternal and child healthcare services and create employment opportunities particularly for women. And to break the cycle of poverty and uplift the region, the Sindh Government must introduce a special scholarship program for Thari students at all levels: school, college, and university.
The people of Thar have long demanded that the provincial and federal government establish a public sector university in the region. The government’s approach to this issue must change from aid packages to investing in human capital. By doing so, we will be moving one step closer to high-quality education being provided to everyone in the region which, in turn, will lead to changing the social fabric of the area and encouraging self-sustainability.
Ali Nawaz Rahimoo
Umerkot
