Daily Times

KARACHI: Fehmida Jamali, Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry Quetta founding president, said Saturday that it was a matter of appreciation that the federal government was paying special attention to the development of Balochistan, making concerted efforts to provide all essential facilities to the people on priority basis to ensure that the country’s largest province on a par with other federating units at the earliest.

Jamali said it is all the more good to note that development projects involving estimated total cost of more than Rs 700 billion relating to water, provision of electricity are currently under implementation in different parts of Balochistan.

“Inauguration of Kachhi Canal after being in doldrums for 15 years is rightly being described as the fate changer of Balochistan,” she remarked.

Meanwhile, Fehmida Jamali also highlighted that the people of Gwadar are also in urgent need of water. “Clean drinking water is a constitutional right of every citizen and the government has failed to provide it.”

“Transforming Gwadar into a Pakistani Dubai, New York, or Shanghai can wait. Drinking water for the people of Gwadar cannot,” she said.

Though it is hard to imagine going without clean drinking water for 15 to 20 days consecutively, for the citizens of Gwadar, it is a fact of life. Residents of this coastal city get clean drinking water for just one hour, every two to three weeks which needs to be addressed and put under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) so that Gwadar may deliver as expected by stakeholders.

Published in Daily Times, September 17^th 2017.