Balochistan needs better travel facilities
Balochistan needs better travel facilities
Editorial
Editorial

Balochistan is the most backward and ignored province of Pakistan where people are denied basic services, including decent travel facilities, in absence of comprehensive road network. Travel facilities are inseparably linked with the availability of a decent infrastructure in any given territory.

Balochistan is the most backward and ignored province of Pakistan where people are denied basic services, including decent travel facilities, in absence of comprehensive road network. Travel facilities are inseparably linked with the availability of a decent infrastructure in any given territory.

The State, to this date, had denied the basic infrastructure to Balochistan even after 70 long years. There is no work in sight to build it in near future. There is some work undertaken on some road links given undue political importance by the functionaries. There is some construction work, after a lapse of complete one decade, started on the road network connecting Gwadar with northern parts of Pakistan through the Indus Highway.

During the PPP regime, work was done on the Sindh section and Balochistan section was ignored deliberate as Balochistan has no say at the Federal level. The more important roads and highways are ignored. For example the RCD Highway is still under construction even after 60 long years. It is yet to be complete. However, the quality of road between Karachi and Quetta had been improved. The remaining section of Quetta-Zahedan section is in shambles needing massive reconstruction and repairs at a big scale.

Thus the people of Balochistan are denied decent travel facilities in absence of basic infrastructure or the road network. In most of the cases, transporters were found investing tens of millions on buying new buses and trucks and in absence of decent and quality roads, the vehicles are reduced to junks in years while Karachi buses are operating for the past 50 years or more.

The old buses are on the road merely because of quality of roads in the city. In absence of better facilities, the transporters are compelled to charge more from the passengers to recover their heavy investment in fewer years than in the Punjab and KPK. The construction of a better and decent infrastructure is linked with the availability of funds from the Federal Government. Since Balochistan has zero influence on decision-making at the Central level, the province is denied funds or Balochistan is kept at the lowest priority.

As the propaganda is on the top in regard to the construction of CPEC connecting Gwadar with Kashgar via Punjab and the KPK, there is some allocation of funds to build related roads connecting Gwadar. The allocation of funds is part of the political stunt on the CPEC giving an impression that there is visible economic turnaround once we complete or make Gwadar operational as a deepwater port.

Once the propaganda campaign is subsided or stopped, there will be again zero spending on those roads linking Gwadar with rest of the country, even the provincial Capital Quetta. In any case, it is prudent decision to build the bus terminal in the outskirts of Quetta to improve the travel facilities to the people. Such terminals should also be built in all the major cities and townships of the Province where people should enjoy better travel facilities.

We have opposed the shifting of bus terminal from the main city centre to the outskirts of Quetta and we believe that the people should get all the facilities and services at their doorsteps and not at faraway place. We demanded a score bus terminals within the city centres so that the people should better enjoy the travel facilities.

It is job of the traffic police and local administration to ensure that the flow of traffic is not hampered as a result of the movement of passenger buses. Finally, the QDA Director-General should be made fully and squarely responsible if there was any corruption or leakage of funds for building the Rs 300 million bus terminal project at Hazar Ganji. The entire money should be spent on the project and there should be no commission and no kickbacks to anyone.