A high powered commission on FATA reforms had completed its valuable recommendations and the Federal Government is about to accord it an approval through a Cabinet decision in near future. Reportedly, the recommendations had already been placed before the Federal Cabinet for the final decision. According to the recommendations, the Pakistan Government would grant constitutional rights to the residents of 8 FATA Tribal Agencies and they will be equal citizens of Pakistan enjoying equal constitutional rights. All the Tribal Territories will be merged with the KPK Province enjoying full rights like the other citizens of settled districts. They will have representation in the KPK Provincial Assembly and also in the National Assembly or the Federal Parliament. It will be good news for the FATA people and also for the entire nation that they will be getting back their constitutional rights after a century or more. The FATA will be part of the grand Pakhtun Province which will have a very powerful voice in the Federation of Pakistan and continue to remain a strong supporter of legitimate rights of the smaller and weaker provinces of Pakistan.

It will be better that the annexed territories from Afghanistan, now made part of the Balochistan Province for administrative reasons, are also included in the new and bigger provincial Pakhtun boundary as Zhob and Loralai had never been part of historic Baloch Mainland and by designs the Britons first and afterwards General Yahya Khan included these areas to Balochistan and with a criminal intention to disturb the ethnic, social and cultural harmony of Baloch Mainland. Baloch had never claimed that territory or its resources and considered it annexed territory from Afghanistan by the British colonial power. Thus the forced merger of these areas with Balochistan is arbitrary and invalid and it should be reversed without any delay by merging the area with the greater KPK Province. They people have no right to have representations in the Balochistan Assembly or represent Balochistan in the Federal Parliament. The whole constitutional order is misplaced and the chosen representatives from Balochistan and other minority provinces should fight for the Baloch right by merging the annexed territory with KPK during the current process of administrative and constitutional reforms in FATA or rationalizing the boundaries of the Pakhtun people within the territorial limits of Pakistan. We hope that the Federal Government will also make the Zhob and Loralai region as part and parcel of the FATA reforms by resolving the administrative mismanagement willfully enforced by the British colonial rulers have evil designs against Afghanistan. Baloch had no designs against Afghanistan and on the contrary, Baloch had very good relations with Afghanistan for centuries with no territorial dispute or other controversial issues involved in the entire history. It is unfortunate that the successor Governments in Pakistan continued the British colonial approach and rather gave it a further boost by not rationalizing the provincial boundaries of Balochistan and KPK. We will suggest that the future NFC Award should be exclusively based on the Baloch Mainland excluding the annexed territories from Afghanistan. Their economic and financial share should be included in KPK, the real home of the Pakhtun people in Pakistan. The future economic plans should be Baloch specific or including the cultural minorities in Balochistan who remained part and parcel of the Baloch society. Those included Hazaras, Punjabi settlers and other than the Pakhtuns belonging to the annexed territories. The new reforms should included re-demarcation of provinces on ethinc, cultural basis with merger of Dera Ghazi Khan, Jacobabad District and its adjoining historic Baloch areas back to Balochistan so that the rationalization of boundaries should be complete in a single phase.