Pak-China project: Corridor route remains unchanged: ministry

Khursheed Shah warns that changing original route will cause disaffection among marginalised provinces

Government officials on Thursday vehemently denied they had introduced any last-minute change in the original route of the proposed China-Pakistan economic corridor amidst opposition warnings that such a move would create disaffection among marginalised provinces.

“All records of meetings on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor are available with the Foreign Office and they show that no change has been made to the original route,” Communication Secretary Shahid Ashraf Tarrar told the Senate Standing Committee on Communication.

He said the government is planning to construct four different link routes along the corridor and that this may have created confusion which has triggered the controversy over the project’s route.

In a letter written to the prime minister on February 10 – the text of which was released to the media on Thursday – the main opposition leader in parliament Khursheed Shah called on the government to take into account the interest of lesser developed areas before deciding to change the route of the corridor.

Under the original plan, the economic corridor would have passed through all four provinces of the country, Shah wrote. But the new changes, he said, made it so that the corridor would only pass through Punjab and Sindh. The opposition leader urged the government to revert back to the original plan.

“The original plan needs to be followed in letter and spirit as it will have positive impact on the economy of smaller provinces and underdeveloped areas like Fata while modification in the original plan may raise the feelings of disparity and inequality among those affected,” read Shah’s letter.

The ministry of communication, however, denied there was any change in the original route of the economic corridor.

Committee chairman Daud Khan Achakzaihad warned earlier that any change in the original route would meet the same fate as Kalabagh dam since the smaller provinces would never allow such a controversial project to be constructed.

Senators from Balochistan stressed that delinking the province’s cities, particularly its capital Quetta, from the economic corridor would create serious anxiety among its residents, who feel deprived as it is. They urged the government to ensure economic zones are established in various cities of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa along the corridor to bring them at par with other developed parts of the country.

The communication secretary said at least 10 to 12 special economic zones would be constructed along the route. He added that the corridor would connect Dera Ismail Khan with Dera Bugti, Khuzdar and Gwadar.

According to Tarrar, constructing the 2,242-kilometre corridor would cost $11.5 billion and take at least 10 to 15 years. He said the Karachi-Lahore Motorway has been demarcated in four portions and the Chinese government is providing soft loans for this.

The secretary added that Chinese private investors are investing $1 billion on the highways under the ‘build, operate and transfer’ mechanism.


Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2015.