Wrong, Britain became a superpower and a colonial empire long before its citizens were guaranteed healthcare (post WWII), even long after Britain outlawed child labour (first quarter of 20th century) and then later introduced universal education with increasing years. Same goes for the US and elsewhere.
Granted, you may ague that word progress is such that ending child labour, access to healthcare and education, are all basic requirements by today’s standards. But you are still wrong to criticise infrastructure spending.
Just now we’re seeing a current account crisis, our exports are woeful and imports too high. As a result, public spending is being cut on everything, from education and other services which you have mentioned to CapEx. If you do not have energy infrastructure to power industry, roads and rail to transport goods and people, increase mobility of labour and capital, port infrastructure to export, then you can’t build the basis for an economy that can sustain a British style NHS healthcare system which costs them $150 billion a year for one third of the population of Pakistan.
You can make some valid arguments for focusing more on boosting literacy, providing basic healthcare better so people don’t die of completely preventable illnesses etc. But your criticism of infrastructure spending is invalid IMO. Especially as we’re discussing Pakistan, our infrastructure is poor and in a country where nothing is done properly, to have a quality rail project completed successfully is something to celebrate. Just ask people of Karachi, including poorer residents, how much a few Lahore style metro, road and orange line projects will change their lives.
