come to Pakistan and see yourself. you are sikh i'm guessing yes? ask any of your pilgrims to compare our Punjab with your doaba. you'll be shocked. the most prestigious university in Punjab since british times, is located here. i've heard you guys opened a fake version of it over there
the kind of grinding poverty you guys have in india is unmatched even by african countries. honestly that you can brag about anything when 78 % of your population is going without food, is just pathetic. i would die of shame if my countrymen were dying of starvation and the rest of us went about our daily lives (before you bring up thar drought, that is rare occurrence and was swiftly taken care of by civil society/govt)
if 78% are hungry in my country then howcome we have 50% middle class people.. Bombay has higher gdp than whole of Pakistan. and our government provides 1 rupee atta dal for poor people so no question of hunger. and gurudwaras are always open with free langer. believe what you see with your own eyes and not propaganda
In the tale of two Punjabs, that were split apart by a line drawn hastily by Sir Cyril Radcliffe in 1947, the Indian state has clearly shot ahead of its Pakistani counterpart on the farm front.
The level of mechanisation of agriculture is much higher on the Indian side. The number of tractors and diversity of brands seen operating in India's Punjab quite outnumbers the Pakistan side.
While combined harvesters are a rare sight in Pakistan, where wheat and paddy are cut manually, they are indigenously manufactured in India and their use is widespread.
Not enough tractors to go around in Pakistan's Punjab.
With the flow of labour from Bihar reduced to a trickle due to the success of local rural employment schemes, Punjab farmers have stepped up the level of mechanisation even further with the use of fodder harvesting machines as well.
Indian trucks loaded with consignments of hybrid tomatoes and green chillies for export to Pakistan through the Attari-Wagah border provide ample evidence of the advances that Indian agricultural scientists have notched up over their Pakistani counterparts.
Pakistani seed importer Tahir Saleem, who has a tie-up with an Indian seed company, told Mail Today at the India Show in Lahore that hybrid seeds are sown in less than one-fifth of the roughly one lakh acre under tomato cultivation in Pakistan. The rest of the area is under the local variety, which has a yield that is a mere onetenth of the hybrid seeds.
The yields of wheat, paddy and sugarcane are also much higher in India.
Apart from better seeds, farmers on the Indian side of the Punjab border have greater access to fertilisers. Cruising through the 370 km Islamabad-Lahore motorway, one could see several patches of light green wheat fields clearly showing that the crop was deficient in nitrogenous fertiliser. In contrast, the wheat fields on the Indian side were a lush dark green carpet reflecting the better health of the crop.
Similarly, on the Pakistan side, one can see stretches of unproductive saline or "Kallar" land. All such wastelands on the Indian side have been reclaimed years ago with liberal doses of gypsum, which is in short supply in Pakistan.
An official of public sector MMTC at the India Show told Mail Today that the company had got a lot of enquiries about fertilisers and gypsum in particular from visitors.
Primitive fodder cutting machine on Pakistan's side.
It is not that the Pakistan's Punjab has nothing to offer. It has a rich network of canals and the Chenab and Jhelum rivers flowing out of Jammu and Kashmir carry plenty of water. There are also a lot of kinnow orchards which export fruit to the Gulf through the sea route and are reported to be doing a good business.
However, the difference in the level of prosperity is reflected in the size of the houses in Indian villages which are much bigger and sport a concrete finish. On the Pakistan side, villages still have some mud houses and there are more houses with a mere brick finish.
Besides, cars are a common sight in the villages of India's Punjab but one only occasionally gets a glimpse of them in the villages on the other side.
Apart from the income of the farmers, the cost of buying a car such as a Suzuki's Maruti 800 or Alto in Pakistan is more than three times that in India and, therefore, not easily affordable.