QUETTA: Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani has said that his government is working on 450 development schemes initiated 15 years ago by previous governments under the then Public Sector Development Programme.

He said the development schemes would be completed in the current financial year and the government was spending Rs32 billion on these schemes.

He said the present government was the first one which had decided to give importance to those sectors which would generate revenue for the province as the province was facing financial crisis and it needed massive funds for the development of Balochistan.

“The mineral sector is very important and the government is taking serious steps for its development,” Mr Alyani said, adding that due to shortage of resources the government had allocated just 15 per cent of its current budget to the PSDP.

He said that though the case of Riko-Diq was under trial and one court concerned had given its verdict against the government, the amount of damages was yet to be determined which the Balochistan government was supposed to pay.

In reply to a question about the closure of Balochistan mineral project launched by nuclear scientist Dr Samar Mubarak Mand, the chief minister said that the project had to be abandon after spending around Rs1 billion on it in just three months.

He said that Mr Mand had also started work in Thar coal field in Sindh, but failed in that project too.

Later, he said, the Sindh government hired services of this particular sector’s experts and initiated the work on the coal power plant and successfully completed the first phase of the project and it had now started producing electricity.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2019