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ISLAMABAD – Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar yesterday dispelled the impression of slowing down pace of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects saying that major work of the CPEC projects was completed during the PTI government.
“The real work on the Western Corridor was started during the PTI government,” the minister said. He said that the country has taken effective steps for ensuring foolproof security of the Chinese. “The security measures have also been shared with the Chinese leadership who were now satisfied,” he added. The minister said that power projects with installed capacity of 3,340 MW were completed during the previous government while 5,864 MW of power projects were being completed during the PTI’s tenure. Also work on another 1824 MW projects had also been started recently that would be completed after the tenure of current government, he added.
Regarding the infrastructure and road projects, the minister informed that the PML-N government completed 394 kilometers long motorways and highways under CPEC while the current government had so far completed 413 kms of the motorways and highways. He said the PML-N government totally ignored the Western Corridor that was the heart of CPEC. He said Gwadar-Hoshab road was completed by the previous government while the Hakla-Dera Ismail Khan motorway was initiated by the PML-N government who completed 42 percent of the project while the rest was completed by the current government.
Except these two projects, the PML(N) government could not reach to even the initial approval stage of any of the road project on the Western alignment, Asad Umar claimed.
Similarly contractor for the 210 kms Zhob-Queta project had been mobilized and PC-1 of the 331km Quetta-Khuzdar road was approved while funding for this project had already been allocated in the PSDP 2021-22. The incumbent government had completed 67 percent work of the 110 km Khuzda-Basima road while it would also complete the rest work soon.
Likewise the 146 km Hoshab-Awaran road project had also been approved and contractor had been mobilized. The Hoshab-Awaran project is an integral part of the CPEC central alignment that connects the port city of Gwadar with Sindh.
He said that real work on Western Corridor of CPEC was started during PTI government. The minister said that they did not wait for the Chinese investment and started work on the projects with its own resources under PSDP. Peshawar-DI Khan Motorway project is one of such projects which has recently approved.
Likewise the government has also accorded approval to other such roads such as Nokundi-Mashkel road, Mashkel-Panjgur road, Awaran-Jhal Jhao road.
The minister said these connecting roads and the Wester Alignment were being built to take maximum benefit of the opportunities to be open up in Afghanistan after peace and stability prevailed in the country.
Asad Umar said after completion of first phase, we were entering in the second but very important phase of CPEC under which investment would come to a range of sectors including industrialization, agriculture, livestock, science technology, and other social sector development sectors.