Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has laid the foundation stone of 303km Khuzdar-Kuchlak highway in Balochistan on Saturday, ensuring to expedite development projects in the southwestern Pakistani province.
The PM visited Quetta, Balochistan’s provincial capital, and inaugurated construction work on the part of the N-25 highway connecting Khuzdar city with Kuchlak town.
Balochistan shares border with Afghanistan and Iran- and is Pakistan’s largest province in terms of land area but it’s least populated and underdeveloped. It has seen a low-intensity insurgency for the last two decades, driven by anger that its ample reserves of natural resources are not relieving citizens from crushing poverty.
Read more: Government to modernise and improve road infrastructure of Balochistan
Addressing the ceremony held to mark the inauguration, he promised to accelerate development in Balochistan and end poverty.
“With unity and consensus, Balochistan will be put on a path of rapid development and prosperity,” said PM Sharif at the groundbreaking ceremony of the 330km Khuzdar-Kuchlak section of the Chaman-Karachi (N-25) National Highway.
The Karachi-Quetta highway was recognized as a “killer highway” as a number of people had been killed in fatal accidents while traveling on it. Shehbaz Sharif said his government is very much concerned about turning it from a risky highway into a prosperous one.
Moreover, he issued orders to the National Highway Authority (NHA) officials to complete the 814km N-25 highway from Balochistan’s Chaman city to Karachi in one-and-a-half years, continuing that the highway’s completion was one of the basic demands of the Balochistan people.
Besides, the premier also discussed the issue of missing persons, which continues to ignite rebellion in the province.
In March 2011, a federal commission was set up on enforced disappearances that listed 8,122 cases of missing persons reported nationally by June 2021, out of which 5,880 have been resolved. As a minimum of 500 people on the list are from Balochistan.
