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A welfare state is an idea of government in which the state plays a major role in the promotion and protection of the economic and social well-being of its people. Such a government is a part of the lives of its people as it caters to the material, physical and social demands of its people. The main aim of a welfare state is to primarily generate economic and social equality and to ensure fair access to justice, well standards of living, freedom of faith and speech and complete transparency in decision making of executives and officials.
The services that the welfare state should offers include sustenance, insurance, health services, unemployment, housing, education, days off for injuries and sickness, extra income in special condition and equivalent wages by wage controls. Other services that a welfare state offers include child care, public transportation, social public goods such as libraries and public parks, swimming pools etc.
Some of the services offered could be financed through the government insurance schemes or taxes gathered by the government. And above all state should be accountable to the citizens. In Pakistan, many leaders of the state have promised to make the country into a welfare state but still we hope for the best and when that time will come?
Pakistan lacks an overarching social strategy embodied within a social justice structure. The Government of Pakistan's aspirations to become a welfare state are far from attainable...