THIS is with reference to the letter ‘Gwadar flooding a man-made disaster’ (March 13), which found fault with Islamabad, which was fine, but overlooked the responsibility of the provincial govern- ment, which was wrong.

I served with the Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) in 2006-07 in a senior position. The bulk port was completed in 2007 and was inaugurated by Pervez Musharraf, who was the president at the time. The federal government had developed only the port area, while the rest of all development fell under the responsibility of the province. The Gwadar Development Authority (GDA) was working under the provincial government, which was responsible for the development of the city, which included building roads and infrastructure.

I personally felt at the time that the GDA had no capacity to develop a city like Gwadar. Ill-planned development was the order of the day. Though initially the locals earned a lot of money by selling plots of land to outsiders, things changes after insurgency in Balochistan as no outsider was ready to invest in that part of the country anymore.

Now, hopefully under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the city can flourish, but dual control over the city will never allow it to grow. I personally feel that the administration of Gwadar should be transferred to the federal government so that a proper mega city could emerge. It was a rather unwise decision to transfer authority to an entity like GDA that lacked capacity to build the city and its infrastructure.

Humayun Iqbal Shami
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2024