According to a report in this newspaper, the committees will prepare their reports with recommendations and present them to the prime minister’s anti-smuggling steering committee. The K-P chief secretary also will be a member of the committee concerned with the province. It will formulate a long-term policy aimed at setting up pharmaceutical industries in the province. The policy will aim at reducing cultivation of poppy in the province, and the federal government will cooperate with the provincial government in this regard. The committees will prepare recommendations for a long-term special investment policy for Balochistan and K-P. The proposals would include subsidies, concessions and exemptions on duties and taxes. The government has decided to offer incentives to those investing in these areas. At the same time measures aimed at promoting ease of doing business will also be taken.
The plan to establish pharmaceutical industries in the newly-merged districts of K-P is aimed at luring people away from poppy cultivation. If the plan succeeds, it would go a long away in cutting cultivation of poppy, the base material for the production of heroin and other harmful drugs. Poppy is also used in some modern medicines, so pharma industries in these regions will have easy access to raw materials. In K-P, other herbs used in medicines are also grown. This factor will give incentives to local growers of such herbs. Since the aim of the plan is to discourage poppy cultivation, we hope international investors would also invest in the local pharma industry. But if only the plan translates into a reality.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2019.
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