Comprehensive facts about the Diamer district in the Northern Areas of Pakistan

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Agriculture and food | Forests |  Water | Energy | Health and environment | Climate | Education | Governance and finances | Tourism


30.08.2005 

Agriculture and Food

The Diamer district is the home-area of about 195,000 persons (1996), which operate about 16,000 farms and a total of 14,900ha cultivated land, equal 149km2. So the average farm has an cultivated area of about 0,93 hectar, equal to a field size 96 by 96 meters. Or in local area-units: 19 "Kanals" ( 1 Kanal=500m2=22 by 22 meters). Typically 12 persons belong to one farm-unit. The cultivable waste area is about 2 times the actual size of area beeing used.

Like the whole Northern areas, the Diamer district is beeing deficit in basic food and consumer goods, these have to be brought in from down country. The main food source in the Northern Areas, cereals, is only comming with about 49%-, vegetables are comming with 82% from the area. It is said, that to counter this deficiency, the government spends about 150 millions Rupies (3million US$) anually by supplying wheat to the region on subsidized rates. That would make a government agriculture-support of about 1US$ per person and year in the Northern areas.

Whatever is harvested ("yield"), due to rough handling, lack of storage and bad road infrastructure (which makes marketing almost impossible), 30-40% is wasted.

Fertilizers are in limited use because of non timely availability, lack of knowledge and high prices due to blackmarketing. Without fertilizer the average grain-yield is about 1.7to/ha. With fertilizer of about 5,300Rs/ha the grain-yield is about 6.4to/ha, and results in an net-income of about 52,300Rs per ha, under a price of Rs.9/kg grain. The cost benefit ratio is about 1:9.90.

Maize, as a dual-purpose crop, is planted on about an area of 10,600ha (71% of all) with a production of about 58,900 tones. Or 3.68tones maize per farm, equivalent to 307kg per person and year. In the USA the maize-yield is about 23,800kg per hectare, in India 9,800kg - in Diamer district it is about 5,500kg (Pakistan: 1,450kg).  The local maize varieties are disease prone and low in fodder, stover and grain yields. Improved maize varieties were evaluated and were found to be 20-30 days late in maturity than the local maize. Any variety to be succesful in the area must be white seeded and nature till 15 October otherwise free grazing livestock, returning from the summer-pastures, will destroy the crop.

There are 16 fruit nurseries and farms with a total of 30,000ha fruit crops. Dominant in the area are the roughly 23,000apple trees which a yield per plant of about 30-50kg.

Most of the crops, vegetables and fruits are comming out of seed by preserving part of the harvest. So one has to put aside 1.4% for maize, about 8.3% for wheat and 10% for potatoes.

The income out of 1 Kanal=0.05ha field-use is the highest with onions: 10,500-17,000Rs, with cauliflower 6,000-9,000 and for cabbage about 5,000-7,000Rs.

It is said, that about 12,5% of the total net-profits earned in the Northern areas are comming out of agriculture, slightly more than out of tourism. The net-profit out of working capital is said to be about 28%, the summary of net-profits is said to be about 34millions Rupies.

In the summer months the animals are taken up into the mountains to graze on the sub-alpine and last alpine pastures.  Normally the owner stays in the village and a shepherd is hired, who keeps about 15-40 cattles or 100-200 goats/sheeps, or a mixture of both. The animals return to the villages with the first snowfall in last September to mid October. So all the crops have to be harvested till 15 October, otherwise free grazing livestock, returning from the mountains, will destroy the crop.

Vegetables are planted on 5,250ha in the whole Northern area with a production of 110,000tones, equal to 20.9tons/ha. Out of this about 67% are marketed. Specially about 90% of the potatoes are grown for seed under contractual arrangements and are send down country. Because at elevations above 2,500m the danger of potatoes-disease is less severe, potato is the crop to expand in this area: About 81% of the agriculture assets in the Northern areas are comming out of potato business.

The production and harvest of crop, fruits and vegetables, is concentrated in August-October, what is sub-optimal and results in small yields and poor quality.

The livestock consists mainly of about 385,000 goats and 165,000cattles, followed by about 66,000sheeps, 13,000 donkeys and 5,600 buffaloes, 3600 horses and 184 yaks in the Astore area. This makes about 28 goats and sheeps and about 10 cattles per farm. Goats are preferred because they give more milk than the sheeps.

Most of the animals and birds imported from the down country are the left over because they are either infected or too old to be of any demand for the down country livestock market.

The average household keeps about 5 poultry-birds and consumes about 17 eggs per year and person. Because of the hard winter-climate the mortality of the poultry is very high, about 60%.

For the whole Northern area there are as far as we know only 13 researchers engaged for working in the fields of agriculture, fodder crops and vegetables.

The whole Northern areas operate about 1,490 tractors, they are mainly used for ploughing at a price of about 400Rs (2003: 6US$) per hour.

Forests

There are about 250,000ha forests in the Northern areas, of which are about 87% private posessions - all natural forests in the Diamer district are owned by the local communities, called 'Private forests'. The yield is about 12m3 per hectar.

The construction of the KKH and many other roads have opened many forests to legal and illegal felling, mostly for sale of timber outside the Northern areas. Regeneration of the felled areas is left to the felling contractor who seldom bothered about it. One trusts and thinks, that nature will produce new trees out of the fallen seeds. The communities could not and do not watch the aspect of regeneration due to influential local people being the initials contractors who invariably sub-leased the contracts to outsiders for huge profits: Profits are said to be about 116% of working capital for both transportation and forest-sector, the banking-sector is said to make about 13% profit.

The loss to forest-area is about 0.2% per year, that are about 7,000-9,000ha per year. Pakistan imports about 30% of the timber it uses.

There are plans to install a volunteer corps of 24 persons to controll the felling and transportation activities. Individuals, wether locals or outsiders, if found guilty of illegal tree-felling would be fined with 25Rs per 40kg of firewood, and Rs 500 per tree. The wood would also be confiscated. Its beeing discussed, that each family should be allowed to collect one backload of firewood per week for domestic use.

In the Buner area the people are organized in 4 groups which are represented in a local commitee that decides about the community-rules: Who is allowed to cut and use which trees for creating houses. For firewood there is only permission given to fell already dead trees. If the committee decides to fell trees for selling, than the earned money out of this is given to the community-members on a per-head- base. Collecting of wood for heating-purposes is done in the Buner area in the time mid September to mid October. The felled trees are then cut by hand in about 1m long pieces and put in the river for downward transportation. With a lot of additional heavy handwork the logs are brought down to the village area, where they are pulled out of the rivers and stored near the houses, for the full-year use.

It is reported, that shortage of fuel-wood and lack of alternate energy sources force in some areas the collecting women and girls to travel to a greater distance than before to collect wood. This walking up steep landscape and comming down with the heavy load has a physical health impact. Beside this, this time is spent at the expense of child-education.The creation of new roads makes is easier to reach upper areas, but it also increased competition as more people harvest the already scarve resource.

Only about  2.35% of the total net-profits earned in the Northern areas are comming out of forest-business. The net-profit out of working capital is said to be about 116%, the summary of net-profits is said to be about 6.45millions Rupies.

Water

In the past 50 years the population of the Northern areas increased by four-fold, whereas water use increased by six-fold.

Only 46% of the people in Northern areas have access to clean water. 45% of the water is comming from taps, 39% is comming from rivers, canals or streams. About every village has a network of water channels, feed by streams locally named "Nullahs" and rivers. These channels are 30-45cm wide and of similar depth. The average channel lenght is about 2-3km, the longest in Northern areas reach out to 12km. Seasonal discharge variations between high and low flows are great as 20 times. Typically the channels deliver water to the fields with about <6.5mm/ha/day. On channels with heavy silt loads, all the farmers may participate in one or two day mid-season desilting operation.
Some villages employ a Chowkidar or Watchman during the irrigation season to patrol the common portion of the channel to adjust and clear debris, to plug leaks and otherwise monitor the system.
To prevent disput about the available water, the water from the channels is passed to certain fields in a regular schedule, so that every farmer who is connected to the channel can make solely-use of the channel-water for at least one day per week.

Water and sanitation diseases prevail as endemic in the area, especially in peak summers when the faecal contamination levels in the drinking water becomes significantly high. In the summer time more then 70% of the population suffered from water born diarrhoes. In almost all villages and towns, the water is related to infections such as typhoid and hepatitis. In 1999 there were 1,800 typhoid infections in the Northern area and an cholera-epidemic with 8,600 cases in the Diamer district and 12 death reports.

Energy

Northern areas has the lowest per-head power consumption in Pakistan, with a demand of 83MW (Pakistan: 11,246MW) for 870,000persons or 95Watt per person. In the Diamer district there are 16 Hydro power generators with 11kV transmission lines and an total capacity of 9MW for 195,000 persons (1996), that makes 46 Watt per person. The new powerstation in Bunar-das has about 1MW. In the winter-time the output of waterborn-electricity is about 25% less than in summer.

Because only 60% of the housholds are connected to electricity, about 22 batteries and 26 candles per month are used by the average houshold for radio and flashlight or for room-lighting. More than 98% of the households use wood as the primary heating source, with an average monthly consumption of 755kg in summer and 1,172kg in wintertime. The price for the wood is about 2.5-3.0Rs/kg. In addition to that, about 8.6Liters kerosene are used.
The average household has 3.2 rooms out of which 2 rooms are to be heated during 4month.

Health and environment

The Diamer district has 6 hospitals with in total 196 beds. That make 33 beds per hospital, compared to 105 beds per hospital in whole Pakistan. The number of peoples per hospital is in the Diamer district 995, in whole Pakistan 1,558. Beside the hospitals there are 15 dispensaries and 23 first-aid posts. The Northern areas have 12 ambulance cars.

In the Northern areas there is one doctor for 3,974persons (Pakistan: 1,822), one paramedical for 610 persons and one hospital-bed for 1,190 persons. One ladies health worker is assigned to 14,500 persons.

Main diseases are related to drinking water with about 1,800 cases of typhoid and 1,650 cases of hepatitis in the year 1999. In the same year about 1,750 cases of malaria were reported.

The population-growth-rate in the Northern areas is 3.2%, the infant mortality is 2.7%. The average age of giving birth is 16,3 years. 39% of the females give birth between 14 and 16years.

Family planning programms were initiated in the Northern Areas in 1986. Against the national Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) of 30%, achieved in 50 years, the CPR of NAs   has been raised from less than 5% to an average of 24% in less than 15 years. Once, the subjects of family planning were taboo in the NAs, now it has become subject of open discussions. Since the start of the family planning programms, the population growth rate has decreased from 3.5% to 2.47% in 1998. Males are in forefront to adopt family planning instead of women. The Male contraceptive surgical method (Vasectomy) has proved most succesful in the NAs after Faisalabad. The Family Planning Association of Pakistan (FPAP) is running projects in the NAs, in the year 2000 they organized a meeting of religious leaders in Gilgit to discuss the "rights of women and children in Islam". Religious leaders were delivering lectures on the rights of women and children during the friday congegations.

There are "Home School Projects" initiated in the NAs to educate women and girls who have not been able to get education.Through this activities a group of women or girls receives a 6 days training in a place provided by the community.

First aid training is another component of the Girl Child Programme, through which the rural families and communities are provided with First Aid. For this pupose a group of   Girl Children are provided with first aid kits after 5 to 6 days training to provide help/first aid to their families and communities.

The consumption of pestizides has increased from 665 tons in 1972 to 44,872tons in 1998. The solid waste in the area is calculated with 0.4kg/person/daily, that makes for Chilas city about 7tons per day, for Gilgit 23tons.

Indoor air-pollution due to biomass smoke and none adequate ventilation is the largest environmental and health risk. Air inside homes gets heavily polluted up to 10, 20 or more time the regulary concentration of recommended WHO-level. Women exposed to wood-smoke for many years face 75 times more risk for aquiring chronic lung disease (asthma, chronic bronchitis), above the level that heavy smokers have.

Researches in India showed, that 18% of blindness is attributed to the use of exposure to biomass fire and the resulting poisonous smoke. Stillbirths and light birthweight are linked to smoke-exposure.

Climate

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CHILAS: Rainfall in mm

CHILAS: Mean temperature in °C

The minimum/maximum deviation is about 6.2°C.

Education

The Diamer district has 171 primary schools, 29 middle-schools and 17 highschools. Beside that there are a public school, a Inter-college and a Degree-college. The average dropout-rate in the Northern Areas is about 8.5% for the primary school and 16.6% for the secondary school-level. The highest dropout-rate is in school grade 9 with about 93% abandonning the education.

In the Northern Areas, boys participation rate for primary, middle and high classes is about 80%, 63% and 39% respectively, while, female participitation is 56%, 28% and 17%. The literacy rate in the Northern Areas is about 40% for male and 25% for female, thats a remarkable increase from the 14.7% for male and 3.0% for female in 1981. As it is published, in the Diamer district the over all literacy rate is less then 10%, particulary female education is almost negligible with around 0.015% or 15 women out of the 100,000. The Aga Khan Education Services AKES has set up 127 schools in the Northern areas, and another 179 schools are set up on private sector.

It is found, that there is a lack of coordination among various supporters of the educational sector. Many interventions have been made by international organizations or private persons, this has given rise to the possibility of duplication and wastage of resources.

Recently, beginning in 1995, the World Bank is working with a system called "Community schools" in partnership with the village organizations. Under the program villages are encouraged to operate their own schools and they receive financial support for running the school, paying the teacher. Since the start of the program in 1995, about 500 community schools have been established beside the governmental schools. With typically about 60 students per school. Special programs are started, to give also girls the chance to participate in education. World bank studies have shown, that   contrary to the popular belief about the extreme social conservatism of the North, parents from even the most traditional areas are eager to educate their girls. The biggest hindrance is that there have to be female teachers, and the teachers must be choosen by the villagers. Also, the classrooms have to be separated.

There is a shortage in teachers, and only few, if any of the community teachers have received any teacher training, which is usually a 3month-course after completing the 10th class of middle-school. So the World bank project will provide trainings for teacher in general, and monitor the work. The vast majority of teachers are teaching students with the said 3month-education, spanning several grades in one classroom without material other than a textbook. For most of the teachers, supervision or other academic support is infrequent, or non-existent, although for example the education authorities in Chilas are taking good care of the teacher and school-projects.

In many parts of the Northern area girls are primaraly assigned to collect the fire-wood. Because increase of deforestation, the girls and women have to be busy for a long daily time at the expense of education.

It have been observed, that if girls leave the village for education, then upon return they are generally not interested in activities that are considered typical of their gender. Giving boys education a priority, out-migration of educated young men for waged labour or economic opportunities increases the workload for women and girls left behind, and diminishes the agricultural productivity.

With increased influx of tourists, women have been asked by the elders to refrain from going out from the house even for collecting firewood or water. Resultantly, women remain within houses whereas an increased number of young girls are given this duties who, instead of going to schools, spend many hours collecting fodder, firewood or water.

It is known, that higher education for girls has an great impact of fertility because is reduces the reproductive years of women.

Governance and finances

The Northern areas have the status of a federally administerd area, it is not represented in the central political forums; they do not have membership in the National Assembly of the Senate. The chief executive authority is the Minister for Kashmir Affairs, Northern Areas, States and Frontier regions. So the people of the Northern areas have no direct powers concerning the approval of the budgetary allocations. They cannot act as a check to the executive of the Northern areas. The total government outlays for the Northern Areas and his 1 million population were said to be 2,546 millions Rupies in 2000 (51 millions US$), out of this about 36% for development.

The population of Northern areas is living in 650 villages and has increased in the years 1981-1996 by about 62% from 586,400 in 1981 to 952,300 in 1996. Nearly 60% of the population is under 20 years old. 32% of the population lives below the poverty line. The per capita income is nearly half of the national average.

The main professions of the residents in the Northern areas are 46% farmers, 23% labour, 8% business and 23% services.

With the construction of the Karakoram Highway the movement of population has increased. Long-term migration by man has an impact on the work burden and the responsibility of woman who stayed behind. The fertility-rate is diminsished with the long-term migration of married man.

Most of the rural poor are small and marginalized farmers, landless folk, artisans, female-headed housholds, aged persons and children. By and large small farmers are engaged in subsistence agriculture where their basic concern is survival and getting ahead with farming. This is why the dimensions of their farms are most often more or less than 0.079ha/farm equal 28 by 28 meters, and they usually grow multiple crops associated with their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter.

The average income per person and year is in the Northern areas about 7,500Rs, equal 187 US$(1996). About 28% of the population is under the poverty level.  With about 8.2 persons an average houshold has therefore an yearly income of about 61,500Rs, equal to 1,532 US$. The per capita income growes with a rate of about 8% per year.

As it is reported, during the year 2000 about 2,501 credits where given from the Agricultural Development Bank to local farmers in the Northern areas, with an average sum of 44,100Rs, equal to 788 US$, and, it is said, an net-profit of about 13.3%.

In the private sector there are invested about 893millions Rupies (1999), out of which as it is said an average net-profit of about 30.8% was earned (Forests: 115%, tourism: 43%, electricity: 9%). This figures of net-profits are high above western-standard.

There are about 7,900 public trucks in the Northern area, about 3,500 jeeps and 3,000 cars, beside 4,000 motorcycles. In the Diamer district there are about 1,900 vehicles. There are 17 post-offices and 9 public-call offices in the Diamer district, in Gilgit there is 1 internet-service-provider.

Tourism

There are no standards or qualifications (knowledge of mountaineering technics, languages, communication skills etc.) for granting of licenses to mountaineering guides or liaison officers, resulting in poor quality of services offered. The efforts have been concentrated on attracting mountaineering and trekking expeditions, with little attention paid to diversification of tourism products. Security for the tourists, in particular along the lower parts of KKH passing along cities and towns, is an issue. Some of the recent incidents, such as stoning of cyclists etc. have created a bad image for the entire area. Opposition of religious leaders to tourism can also lead to division and conflicts among the local population.

With increased influx of tourists, women have been asked by the elders to refrain from going out from the house even for collecting firewood or water. Resultantly, women remain within houses whereas an increased number of young girls are given this duties who, instead of going to schools, spend many hours collecting fodder, firewood or water.

As it is said, about 12% of the total net-profits earned in the Northern areas are comming out of tourism. The net-profit out of working capital is said to be about 43%, the summary of net-profits is said to be about 33millions Rupies.

Disclaimer

The validity of the informations and datas above, specially the financial figures and interpretations, is not assured or crosschecked by officials or government authorities. We have found this informations in books and internet-publications (summer 2003), and think, based on our own knowledge, that they are valid to the point, that they can be used to get an rough idea of the situation in the Diamer district.
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