REGRETTING that the province faced criminal negligence during the last five years, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday said that development of Balochistan on par with other provinces was inevitable. On a visit to Gwadar, the PM inaugurated multiple development projects which were conceived during Nawaz Sharif’s tenure but put to the backburner. Assuaging the concerns of Baloch people, the PM declared that the huge mineral and natural resources belong to Balochistan but stressed that locals must support and take care of foreign investors.
Balochistan is, of course, rich in mineral resources and their exploitation could address its challenges of poverty and backwardness but the issue was politicized by some vested interests. It is mainly because of this and inability of the province to benefit optimally from a number of packages announced by the successive governments that people of Balochistan are still caught in a cobweb of under-development. There is, therefore, dire need to initiate a comprehensive and result-oriented process of dialogue among relevant stakeholders to address concerns about exploitation of the resources, their ownership and the rampant corruption that impedes progress and growth. Apart from this, focus on extension of roads and highways to inaccessible areas, provision of electricity, gas, Internet, education and health facilities could lay foundations for a genuine socio-economic revolution in the province. Gwadar is poised to play a vital role not only in the lives of the people of Balochistan but also in the overall national economy and with this in view the announcement of the Prime Minister that it would become fully functional by February or March is a major development. Completion of the ongoing dredging of the port channel would allow large ships to anchor there while there are expectations that other ancillary projects would also be nearing completion by then.
