n PAKISTAN MUST COUNT THE COST THE Pakistan Ministry of Defence has asked the Planning Commission for over Rs1.66 billion to set up a national canine center for the training of dogs for use in law-enforcement work. The sum, which includes requisitions for salaries and vehicles of dog trainers and rent for the land where the center is to be established, is huge and a Dawn newspaper editorial suggests the government should see to it that the expenditure is justified. Excerpts: According to the plan, once the center is completed in four years' time, it will train 3,260 dogs over the next decade and the cost incurred by each one is being estimated at Rs2.710m. These are large sums of money, particularly for a state that is so cash-strapped that the budgetary allocations for some vital sectors have had to be reduced — a case in point being the Public Sector Development Program. The government should clarify if these expenditures are justified. Certainly, the state is in a financial crunch that precludes any unnecessary spending. So does the proposed canine center fall under this head? Not necessarily. There is no question that in certain areas of policing, trained dogs have proved invaluable to law-enforcement teams across the world. In the absence of any infallible system to detect drugs or explosives, trained sniffer dogs could provide our law-enforcement bodies with just that extra help they need. Training dogs for police work is an expensive proposition; the breed has to be of the purest kind, and each dog must have a dedicated handler. Yet such animals may detect what metal detectors and even physical searches may have let through. Given that the need for such a center exists, therefore, the plan must be rationalized in the context of the country's finances. Costs must be properly assessed and the whole proposal ought to be put forth with transparency of such a degree that concerns of wastefulness cannot be raised. It is true that Pakistan is in an extraordinary situation vis-a-vis security, and therefore must bear extraordinary security-related expenditures. Yet this must be balanced with the need to spend every penny wisely. The military already runs a well-established dog center in Rawalpindi, and this should be factored in. Furthermore, Pakistan could look towards outside sources for funding and expertise, such as the US which has used canine teams to great success. __
