Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif represents the whole of Pakistan and he should treat people of all provinces equally
KARACHI: The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will connect Gwadar to Kashgar through highways, railway tracks and oil and gas pipelines. The shortest route will go via Panjgur, Kalat, Zhob, Dera Ismail Khan, Swat and then to Kashgar. This route covers those areas in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa that have seen the least development since independence. However, it seems that the government has planned modifications to the original route to run it along Karachi, Sukkur, Multan, Lahore, Islamabad and then to Kashgar.
This should not be done at the cost of the people of Balochistan who are the biggest stakeholders in this project. The people of Gwadar have been living in abject poverty. The city has old infrastructure and the roads are mostly unpaved and dirty. The literacy rate is abysmal and there is only one college that caters to boys and girls. And, the less that is said about its health facilities, the better. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif represents the whole of Pakistan and he should treat people of all provinces equally.
Sadia Khalid
Published in The Express Tribune, May 18th, 2015.
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