The international media depicts Pakistan as a terror-ridden country and its rival India as a rising economic power, but certain indicators show economic performance of Pakistan better than all the other countries in the region. Pakistan has robust economy but it is marred by mismanagement and corruption. However, even then in certain conditions the economic variables independently move and find their way out. The country is facing statistical blindness as there is visible lack of interest in the improvement of data collection system. How many years are required to maintain record of profit and loss accounts, imports and exports, the rate of industrial production, the data of agricultural produces and many many other things of the country? The statistical blindness is leading the country to nowhere. When the world media talks about the Indian economy, it regards it as a ‘success story’ and Pakistan as weak economy. However, keeping in view the performance of the stock market, the situation has now begun to change and the international donor agencies have projected the rate of the country nearly 6 percent. Despite all odds, the economic performance of the country is better than India and Bangladesh. The country needs an effective data collection system to keep an eye on the economic indicators and trends in various sectors of the country.
This is the age of information technology and Pakistan has the best brains of the world which can develop a system to collect and analyze every point of the national economy. The allocation of budget, assessment of gross domestic product as well as audit and accounts of all the departments require a compact, feasible and reliable data collection initiative. The lack of data is a kind of economic blindness, which comes as big hindrance to launch development projects or curtail expenditures. According to the experts, the size of the economy is much larger than it is often estimated. There is no dearth of experts to do this job, but lack of interest of the government departments to keep the record of their own account in order is big hurdle in data collection. No doubt the economy of the country is improving but the government has little share in it. Rather every government department tries its best to pull down every business venture. The census of the country has been due for a long time and if it is done within a stipulated time, it will be the best service to the national economy.
