Pakistan warned of no books for students in new academic session amid paper crisis

Amid the paper crisis in Pakistan, the country’s paper association has warned that books will not be available to students in the new academic year starting in August 2022. All Pakistan Paper Merchant Association, Pakistan Association of Printing Graphic Art Industry (PAPGAI), and other organisations associated with the paper industry, along with the country's leading economist Dr Qaiser Bengali, addressed a press conference and informed about books not being available in the upcoming year.

It is to note that the cause of the paper crisis in Pakistan is global inflation coupled with incorrect policies of the governments and the monopoly of the local paper industries. Paper prices in the country are increasing by the day and as per ANI, the publishers are unable to determine the price of the books. 

Due to this, textbook boards of Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will not be able to print textbooks. In the wake of the crisis, a Pakistani columnist has raised questions to the country's "incompetent and failed rulers", asking them how they will solve the economic problems at a time when the country is trapped in a vicious cycle of taking loans to pay back the previous loans.

Pakistani columnist questions Pak government 

Writing for Pakistan's local media outlet Dunya Daily said Ayaz Amir said, “We have seen the rules of Ayub Khan (Former President of Pakistan), Yahiya Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. We have seen the governments of dictators and they all had one thing in common, take loans to solve the problems and then take more loans to pay back the previous loan."

He said that this never-ending cycle is still going on and now Pakistan has reached a point when nobody is willing to give the country any further loans. "We could not solve the economic problems of our country when the population was 11 crores during the regime of Zia ul Haq. How our incompetent and failed rulers are going to improve the economy when the population has doubled to 22 crores?" he asked in his column piece, reported by local media.

In the meantime, Pakistan signed a $2.3 billion loan facility accord on Tuesday in an effort to revive its crisis-affected economy. Following the depletion of foreign reserves as well as the currency plunge, an agreement was reached with a group of Chinese banks. The loan is anticipated to help the cash-strapped economy and allow Islamabad to pay for necessary imports, as per media reports. 

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