Bureau Report
KARACHI: CPEC Authority Chairman Lt General (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa Tuesday said no power on earth could sabotage China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as it was the country’s national project.
Addressing a ceremony at Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) here, he said CPEC, being a flagship project of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, had improved the road connectivity between the two countries and would do so further.
On eastern alignment of CPEC, Bajwa said only one section Sukkur-Hyderabad was left that had already been launched by the Prime Minister Imran Khan recently. He said the request for proposals of this project would be completed under public private partnership mode and floated within a month and after that the ground work would be started.
“Now our full focus is on western alignment,” he said adding motorway from Islamabad to Dera Ismail Khan (DI Khan) was at final stage while the DI Khan to Zhob motorway project had also been approved by the Chinese side.
Similarly he said the ground work on road from Zhob to Quetta had also been started whereas Quetta to Khuzdar, Khuzdar to Awaran and Hoshab, and Khuzdar-Basima roads were also under construction and all of them would be connected with different areas of Balochistan and Sindh with Gwadar. Within next three years, all these routs would be connected, he added. Bajwa said the western alignment passed through remoter areas where there was extreme poverty.
The road projects under CPEC would improve connectivity and create new job opportunities for the people lining along the roads, he said adding this would ultimately bring prosperity in the area.
The CPEC Authority chairman said, “We are now moving beyond energy and road infrastructure to agriculture, Special Economic Zones (SEZs), tourism, science technology and information technology”. He said the poverty alleviation could be ensured through the above mentioned measures being executed under CPEC Phase-II.
