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| June 15, 2005 | Wednesday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 7, 1426 |
‘Fears need to be addressed’
KARACHI: The district nazim of Gwadar stresses the need for effective cooperation among government agencies and stakeholders to integrate development activities in the town. Nazim Baboo Gulab, who was on a visit to Karachi, talked to Dawn said that the development pace could be faster if coordinated efforts were made and attention paid to the immediate problems of the people there.
He complained, “The district government is being bypassed in vital decisions concerning the coastal town.” This situation, he said, had been causing confusion in the minds of the local people.
He underlined the need for creating better understanding among all key stakeholders, saying that most of the problems could be resolved by bridging the communication gap between the district, provincial and federal governments.
He also suggested that the political leadership should be taken into confidence while taking important decisions about the town.
“Due to lack of understanding, we cannot even decide the resettlement of a small population living within the limits of the port area,” he remarked.
Supporting his argument, the nazim said that had the matter been left to the district government, it would have settled the issue by now by granting appropriate compensation to the affected people.
He agreed that shifting the population would create resentment among the people if they were not assured of proper resettlement and given due compensation.
When asked for his perception about Gwadar’s future, Mr Gulab said that no one could deny the fact that the present government was the first in the country’s history to give top priority to Balochistan’s development, something ignored by all former successive governments.
But the core issue was not development per se but its benefits, as there were people who felt that their interests were not being looked after. There was also a general feeling that benefits of massive development plans would not accrue to local people, he stated.
The nazim blamed the ‘communication gap’ as a key factor responsible for the ‘confusing situation.’ “Had there been effective communication among all stakeholders,” he said, “the situation would have been different.”
He said that it was not correct to say that people were against mega projects. But they were worried about their future and had certain reservations and misgivings that needed to be addressed. The issues that were upsetting people pertained to employment, housing, health, education, water supply and sewerage problems.
Under the present circumstances, he said that it was not possible for a common Gwadarian to buy land or build a house, as land prices in the town had skyrocketed. Though land had been allotted to real estate agents for launching housing schemes, not a single scheme had been started so far.
“There is only buying and selling of property in the name of housing projects,” Mr Gulab pointed out, saying that the district government had not been empowered to allot land or authorize these allotments.
Had the district government been involved in the process, land bungling could have been checked to a great extent, he argued.
He explained that the provincial government had so far launched two housing schemes — Sangar and New Town – through the district administration, but there was the prospect of a mushroom growth of housing schemes in the private sector.
When his attention was drawn to reports of land scams, Mr Gulab agreed that there was a lot of manipulation and bungling, but he said that the situation could be averted if there was effective coordination and lack of planning among government departments.
He refuted the charge that there would be massive dislocation of the local population in Gwadar and its adjoining areas when the port would become fully operational. The nazim said, “The nationalists and some other people have certain reservations, who realize that benefits of the port would not accrue to the local people.” These reservations needed to be thoroughly debated among the stakeholders.
He suggested that in this regard, the federal government could initiate a process by not only taking the provincial and district governments into confidence, but the political leadership as well.
He said that fears that the local people of Gwadar, and of Balochistan, would become a minority in their own province if people from all over the country were allowed to come there, to work on the port, and then be given voting rights, must be allayed and the issue should be seriously discussed.
About civic conditions of the town, the nazim said that he had already demanded an allocation of Rs1 billion from the federal government for launching the Gwadar District Development Plan on the pattern of the Tameer-i-Karachi Programme, so that a road network and a water and sewerage system could be developed.
He said that the demand was had been forwarded to the governor of Balochistan and to the parliamentary committee headed by Mushahid Hussain.
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