Senate body for making Gwadar Port efficient

[LRE]

Senate body for making Gwadar Port efficient


7/8/2008
ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Ports and Shipping on Monday exhorted the federal and provincial authorities to redouble their efforts to ensure that the Gwadar Port is made operationally efficient at the earliest, as it would bring tremendous benefits to the country. This observation was made by the Chairperson of the Committee Senator Gulshan Saeed while reviewing the ongoing projects of National Highway Authority (NHA), WAPDA, CAA, Pakistan Railways, and the plans being envisaged by the Ministry of Ports and Shipping to make the Gwadar Port fully operational.

The chairperson and members of the committee expressed the view that the development of Gwadar Port was very slow and that no significant progress seems to have been made so far. The members of the committee were of the view that if we are not doing dredging, the port will not be considered operational.

Secretary Ministry of Ports and Shipping informed the committee that the port has been completed and operational. He informed the committee that in order to give a boost to the operational activities at the Gwadar Port, it has been decided in the last ECC meeting that all wheat imported for Balochistan would be routed thorough Gwadar.

He told the Committee that transshipment, transit trade and capital trade were the prerequisites for a port to be functional. He said that the port has been leased out to Port of Singapore and they are trying to bring business for the port. It was told that the master plan of Gwadar Port has not been finalised so far. The representatives of QESCO informed the committee that electricity was available at the port and that it was capable of meeting future requirements of the port too. Regarding the provision of sweet drinking water, the committee was told that a desalination plant of 100,000 gallon per day capacity has been installed by the Chinese. Final payment has also been made to them and hopefully, the plant would be operational in two months’ time.

It was suggested that the efforts be made to get water from nearby dams like Shadi Kol and Basole. The committee during a briefing by Pakistan Railways was told that Pakistan Railways in consultation with the Government of Balochistan finalised the route between Gwadar and Mastung, and that the survey of the 900km area has been completed.

The representatives of the PR informed the committee that an amount of Rs450m was deposited with Board of Revenue Quetta against their demand of Rs465 million as the cost of land to be acquired in Gwadar city area. Later EDO revenue/Collector of Gwadar arbitrarily revised the cost to Rs924m.

The committee was informed that GDA wants that underground electricity supply should be carried out instead of overhead supply. This would increase the cost of the project manifold. Members of the committee were of the view that the matter should be taken up at the appropriate level and get resolved in the next ECC meeting.

The Members of the committee while having a briefing by the National Highway Authority (NHA) were unanimous on the view that work on national highways providing connectivity to Gwadar Port in Balochistan was too slow and needs to be geared up. It was pointed out that targets set forth by the NHA were too difficult to meet as one of the major contractors was not performing and giving due results.

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