PRIME Minister Imran Khan on Friday expressed his firm resolve to end the “sense of deprivation” long felt by the people of Balochistan by launching a series of development projects to undo the neglect of decades in the province. Chairing the second meeting of the National Development Council, he constituted a three-member Committee to suggest priority areas for development in Balochistan with special focus on communications, agriculture, energy and other important sectors and submit a report in this regard.
This is a step in the right direction as the areas identified for special focus have the potential to accelerate the pace of socio-economic development of the country’s largest province. Creation of infrastructure, development of agriculture and exploitation of the energy resources and their provision to the people of the province would help increase job opportunities, address the issue of backwardness and bring fruits of progress and modern age to the doorsteps of the people. The biggest hurdle in the way of progress and development of Balochistan seems to be ignorance as people were kept backward deliberately by vested interests. Therefore, provision of educational facilities and incentives to people to send their kids to schools should be the top-most priority if we are really interested in a positive change. It is because of ignorance about their rights that people are still being misled and exploited by some Sardars who have been blackmailing successive governments in the name of people of the province but denied them even the basic facilities. The Prime Minister has referred to the so-called sense of deprivation of people of Balochistan and vowed to remove it by way of launching a series of development projects in various sectors. Hopefully, the Committee formed by him would identify priority projects that are directly linked to accelerating the pace of socio-economic development and necessary resources would be allocated to execute them without further delay. However, we may point out that similar approach was adopted by different governments in the past, which launched mega programmes like ‘Aaghaz Haqooq-e-Balochistan’ and special developmental packages. It is time to ponder over the question of what went wrong and where and how it can be rectified because sense of deprivation is still there despite announcement and to a great extent execution of these programmes and packages in the past. Whether there were flaws in implementation, funding was an issue, corruption prevented trickledown effect to the common man or propaganda about political rights and law and order situation were the hurdles. Political dialogue is fundamental to the success and this should be initiated in right earnest. Political issues are also preventing proper exploitation of the huge mineral resources of the province and without resolution of these issues initiatives like setting up of Balochistan Mineral Exploration Company are unlikely to pay back.
