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Friday March 29, 2024

KP govt keen on getting CPEC benefits

By Tariq Butt
March 17, 2017

Islamabad

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government has now demonstrated, though belatedly, an aggressive ambition to draw its share from political benefits of the landmark China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) for the province.

Previously, it wasted a lot of precious time in needlessly picking holes in the CPEC when it was required to concentrate on it and get what was due to it. However, the change of mind occurred only when Chief Minister Pervez Khattak paid a visit to China as part of a delegation. After that, he suddenly abandoned even slight opposition or voicing reservations over the CPEC. This was a positive transformation.

His attacking views, which he repeatedly publicly voiced, had caused unprecedented angst to China. While the federal government as well as China kept insisting that the CPEC was inclusive, aimed at the good of entire Pakistan, Khattak painted it as something against KP. The Awami National Party also held the same opinion.

A total of nine projects that the KP government now wants to be included in the CPEC may earn the approval of the federal administration as well as China, but unless they were greatly pushed, physical work on them is unlikely to kick-start in the next several months because a considerable time is required for the procedural requirements and paperwork. Obviously, comprehensive spadework will be needed, justifying pumping in investment of billions of dollars.

The PTI’s objective, which is fair and just, to show to the KP people something substantial in the 2018 general elections may not come true as not much work would have been done on ground on these projects that could be showcased to the electorate as a major accomplishment. The federal government will definitely put up the CPEC projects for vote getting in the forthcoming parliamentary polls and it continues to highlight the multibillion game-changer venture as its principal accomplishment. Additionally, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his team have always allocated much of their time for completion of CPEC projects than any chief minister of their rival political parties.

As the impending polls are just a year away and the election campaign has almost been launched though at a slow pace, the KP government will be able to get bonus from its share from the CPEC only if it gets the work on its projects started in the next couple of months. As more time will go by without kicking off the projects, its chances to secure political advantages of its inclusion in the CPEC will become bleak.

Unlike the Punjab government, the KP administration has been slow in firming up its projects for approval of funding by China. It has decided to take the windfall from the CPEC after inordinate delay. Before that, it kept focusing its attention on other issues including protests sponsored by the central PTI, which were certainly not related to the CPEC.

Although Khattak, accompanied by his counterparts in Sindh, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan and top federal representatives, had attended a meeting of the Joint Cooperation Council in China for the first time in December last, his government has now finalized nine projects for inclusion in the CPEC after three months of his tour. It makes it evident that before participating in the JCC session, his government had not done elaborate homework in this connection otherwise work would have been started on them by now.

While several projects undertaken by the federal government in different provinces and those begun by Punjab, which are part of the CPEC, are fast nearing conclusion, the Khattak administration is still in the initial stages. It has to hurry up even now if it wants the KP to utilize from the CPEC.

Only on Tuesday, the KP government said it has prepared a list of nine projects for insertion in the CPEC and a delegation of experts will visit China in April. They include seven projects of 1,978 megawatts costing $6.919 billion in the hydel sector in Chitral, and two projects of oil refinery in Kohat and a transmission line from Chitral to Chakdara in oil and gas sector.

The federal government has given a categorical assurance to KP chief minister that it would extend all help in getting approval for its projects. For a change, the chief minister has been greatly appreciative of the policy and approach of the federal administration regarding the CPEC after his visit to China and has stopped taking on it in this regard.

On his return from China, a satisfied Khattak had stated that projects including laying a railway track from Karachi to Peshawar, construction of Diamer-Bhasha Dam, construction of a road and railway line and fiber-optic from Gilgit to Havelian, establishment of industrial estate, construction of a road, highway and railway line from Peshawar to Dera Ismail Khan and construction of a road from Kohat to Jhand, which would be linked with the route of the CPEC, are part of the CPEC. Similarly, an alternative alignment for the CPEC would also be built from Gilgit to Chitral as well.