Demographics of Swat:
Of the over 5 million residents of Swat, nearly 2 million have now been internally displaced (including people from FATA and Malakand Division). Administratively, Swat is divided into 65 Union Councils and 1 Municipal Committee. Politically, Swat comprises of two sub-divisions, Matta and Swat. Around 60 percent of Swat population is dependent on agriculture; a family at an average owns a hectare of land and the literacy rate is well below the national average. Matta, surrounded by the Hindu Kush, is famous for its orchards of apples and peaches but 3 out of 4 residents make $2 a day or less.
The Government of Pakistan (GOP) and its military are now bracing for another major operation in Waziristan against Baitullah Mehsud, the supreme leader of Tehrike Taliban Pakistan (TTP). As a consequence, the influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) is surely expected to rise (the government is yet to announce a firm date for the return of Swat IDPs).
Agricultural mix:
Swat has 98,100 hectares cultivable while 408,175 hectares remain uncultivable. Swat current fruit production stands at: 5,000 tons of citrus (612 hectares), 50,000 tons of various kinds of apples (4,110 hectares), 6,500 tons of loquats (600 hectares), 41,000 tons of peaches (4,300 hectares), 6,000 tons of plums (6,000 hectares), 7,500 tons of pears (415 hectares) and 300 tons of grapes (60 hectares). Additionally, the Swat Valley produces 110,000 tons of onion (4,000 hectares), 14,000 tons of potatoes (761 hectares), 66,000 tons of tomatoes (6,000 hectares), 800 tons of turmeric (90 hectares) and 4 tons of chilies (3 hectares).
According to a survey by the National Agricultural Research Center (NARC), nearly 48% of Pakistan total fruit is produced by the North-West Frontier Province with the Swat Valley being a major contributor. Another NARC survey concludes that a total of 84,524 hectares of land could be added to the cultivable category with little effort and some basic agricultural machinery.
Damage done to agriculture and local economy:
Farmers in Swat harvest plums, apricots, peaches and pears in the months of May and June while apples are harvested in July and August.
Local media, citing Swat-based agriculture officers, both public and private, has reported that 55 to 70 percent of the total fruit produce has already been wasted. With tons of fruit going rotten, the crops that are sowed during these months have not yet been cultivated and that is a double edged loss (fruit produce wasted while the next crops never cultivated).
As per GOP estimates, loss to agriculture amounts to Rs. 35 billion with an additional revenue loss of Rs. 60 billion in the tourist industry. Situation is bound to go from bad to worse unless
there is a huge, quick and sustained effort from all concerned parties including the provincial and federal governments and the international community.
In 2006, NWFP produced 800,000 tons of corn which was transported to corn processing factories in Punjab. This year, in most of Malakand Division, corn could not be cultivated.
What went wrong:
In a nutshell, consecutive leadership failures created ‘gaps,’ both security gaps and capacity gaps. In Swat, for instance, the state of Pakistan failed to provide security — personal security, economic security and political security — to Swat residents. Then there were capacity gaps — dispensation of justice, food, health and education gaps. The Taliban slipped into these gaps and marginalized the state. IDP camps, if unattended to, will become ideal recruiting grounds for a new generation of extremists.
What needs to be done:
GOP and its international allies must undertake rehabilitation of IDPs on war footing. Hundreds have lost their lives, thousands have been injured and a large portion of the population has lost its source of income. The good news is that the whole world is on the side of the GOP. The Federal Government, the Provincial Government-along with their international allies-now needs to set up a powerful, adequately capitalized Provisional Reconstruction Authority to undertake massive reconstruction and rehabilitation of IDPs.