2,281 acres land acquired for Gwadar Port Free Zone, Senate informed

[Salman]

ISLAMABAD: The Senate was informed Tuesday that land measuring 2,281 acres had been acquired for Gwadar Port Free Zone under the Federal Government financing and lease deed with China Overseas Ports Holding Company was under process.
The Gwadar Port Free Zone had been proposed while other economic zones were yet to be determined under the cooperation mechanism, the Ministry of Planning and Development said in written reply in Senate in response to a question.
The ministry said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was not a route but a comprehensive package of cooperative initiatives and projects.
"These cover the key areas of connectivity such as information network infrastructure, energy cooperation, industries and industrial parks, agricultural development and poverty alleviation, tourism, financial cooperation as well as livelihood improvement, including municipal infrastructure, education, public health and people-to-people communication," it added.
The ministry said the CPEC would connect the nodes of existing and potential growth centers between Western China and Pakistan to enhance connectivity in all these spheres.
The currently identified significant nodes along the corridor included Kashgar, Taxkorgan, Khunjerab, Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore, D.I. Khan, Multan, Sukkur, Quetta, Karachi and Gwadar etc. and such other nodes/growth centers which may fall within the CPEC in future.
These, the ministry said, would also be connected with trade facilitation corridors, dedicated freight corridors, energy corridors, trade logistics corridor, telecommunications corridor, industrial corridors etc. These included all the major existing and potential growth centers of all the provinces and the long-term benefits would also accrue to all the provinces.
Both sides WEre committed that the fruits of the development of this corridor should benefit all areas/provinces of Pakistan consistent with scientific planning parameters, it added.
The ministry said in the CPEC context, it was very important to make the Gwadar Port fully operational first and provision of its linkage with Khunjerab. It was equally important to establish the connectivity between significant nodes identified under CPEC and their linkage with Gwadar Port, Ports in Karachi in the South and Khunjerab in the North.
It was also informed that to achieve the above objective, construction of 18.981 km East bay Expressway has been taken up as a priority project which links Gwadar Port with National highways and motorways network through M-8 & N-85 national highways. Work on M-8 & N-85 being fully funded by the Federal government has been put on fast track basis while work on M-8 Gwadar-Turbat-Hoshab Section (192 km) and N-85 Hoshab-Panjgur-Nag-Basima-Sorab (454 km) has been targeted for completion by June 2016 which will provide connectivity of Gwadar Port with Quetta, D.I.Khan and Peshawar via N-25, N-50 and N-55 on the western side.
The House was informed that to provide the connectivity of Gwadar Port with the highways and motorways network on the eastern side, work on Khuzdar-Ratodero section of M-8 has been planned for completion during this year.
To provide the onward connection with Khunjerab through KKH, multiple existing as well as under construction alignments are available such as N-5 Grand Trunk Road starting from Karachi up to Peshawar, N-55 Indus Highway from Kotri to Peshawar, N-25 linking Karachi with Quetta and onwards up to Chaman border with Afghanistan, then N-50 Linking Quetta with D.I.Khan through Qilla Saifullah, Zhob and Mughalkot up to Peshawar through N-55.
The current year Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) portfolio of Ministry of Communications/NHA include rehabilitation / upgradation projects for the above mentioned national highways. Construction work for improvement of 81 km Zhob -Mughalkot section of N-50 has been taken up by National Highway Authority (NHA).
Also NHA is undertaking a feasibility study of a 4-lane highway to connect D.I.Khan with Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway Ml. There also exist a network of Motorways such as M-1 (155 Km), a 6 lane motorway from Peshawar to Islamabad and M-2 (354 km), a 6 lane motorway from Islamabad to Lahore. M-3 has also been constructed which starts from Pindi Bhattian at M-2 and terminates at Faisalabad.
Work on Motorway from Faisalabad to Multan is in progress and its first completed section up to Gojra has been recently inaugurated by Prime Minister.
The remaining sections of Peshawar-Islamabad-Lahore-Karachi Motorway such as Multan -Sukkur and Sukkur -Hyderabad are also planned for execution. Construction of 136 Km Hyderabad-Karachi section has been awarded to FWO on BOT basis which is the first highway project on BOT basis at this scale in Pakistan.
Rehabilitation work of M-2 has also been awarded to FWO on BOT basis. Work has also started on Hazara Motorway which connects Havelian with Burhan at M-1 and will link Karakoram Highway (KKH) with national highways and motorways network. An alternate existing link is also available from Hassan Abdal on N-5 to KKH.
KKH from Raikot to Khunjerab has been completed in phase-I and work will soon start on the 120 Km long Thakot -Havelian section under Phase II.
So the Government of Pakistan is working not on a single route or highway but on multiple sections to provide connection between significant nodes identified under CPEC with Gwadar & Karachi in the South and Khunjerab in the North for development of China Pak Economic Corridor through the existing/planned networks which pass through all the provinces.
Once fruits of initial development of CPEC become available, long term plan envisages construction of new alignments which cannot be taken up at this stage due to the huge financing requirements as well as long construction period.