By Syed Fazl-e-Haider
THE parliamentary committee on Balochistan’ has approved the recommendations of its sub-committee on ’Balochistan current issues’ headed by Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed. The committee gave a formal approval to the Rs10 billion development and incentive package.
It includes Rs1 billion for hospitals for providing life-saving drugs and anti-venom vaccine, Rs2 billion for Sui, Rs3 billion for Gwadar and Rs4 billion for development of Quetta.
According to the late Dr Mehboob-ul-Haq, " it is not the unequal income but the unequal distribution of opportunity in education, credit, public utilities and other services that is a root cause of poverty". Same in the case with Balochitan.
The committee’s report has also suggested measures to redress grievances of the Baloch leaders vis-a-vis gas royalty, increase in lease money and job quota for the province.
The sub-committee’s recommendations would be presented in next sessions of the National Assembly (NA) and Senate for approval. These recommendations would require two-thirds majority of the Senate and the NA for approval.
The recommendations include clearance of gas royalty arrears, revision of the ’concurrent list’, National Finance Commission (NFC) award, provincial autonomy, job quota and development of gas-rich areas. The committee recommended that backwardness and poverty should be foremost among the criteria of finalizing the NFC award.
It proposed that outstanding gas royalty arrears of Balochistan be cleared before December 2005 by the centre. And that 5.4 per cent job quota for Balochistan in the federal government should be fully provided.
Similiarly,the sub-committee headed by Senator Wasim Sajjad had recommended a complete revision of the ’concurrent list’, announcement of the NFC award before the budget 05-06, biannual meetings of the Council of Common Interests and distribution of federal resources on the basis of poverty, backwardness, unemployment and development level of provinces instead of the existing sole criteria of population.
The PML senators heading two other committees were waiting for President Musharraf’s prior concurrence about the findings of their committees which caused delay in the finalization of the recommendations.
The ’parliamentary committee on Balochistan’ has unanimously adopted the following recommendations:
* The 5.4 per cent of Balochistan’s quota in the federal government jobs, as agreed on the basis of 1998 census, will be implemented and ads for these jobs will appear in local papers of the province within 90 days. In the job quota, people of Gwadar will be given the top of priority to be followed by Makran and then the rest of the province.
* Fishermen who are disturbed because of the construction of the Gwadar port will be relocated and given compensation.
* Gas and petroleum royalty be paid to the areas of their origin and the local people be given representation in the board of directors of the Oil and Gas Development Company and the Sui Southern Gas Company. The oil and gas companies working in the province will be bound to implement these agreements. A one-time waiver on gas charges will be provided to the local areas in the province.
* The Chief Justice of the Balochistan High Court will investigate the alleged irregularities in the sale of land in Gwadar.
* The role of the Coast Guards and Frontier Constabulary will be restricted to checking smuggling of drugs and other goods along the border areas and their check-posts from towns and cities will be removed.
* Short and long-term strategies including waiver of government dues and construction of dams would be devised to control the effect of drought.
* Night landing facilities at the Quetta airport would be provided immediately.
The subcommittee had in all prepared 31 recommendations. A radical proposal of the subcommittee is the recruitment of nearly 10,000 Baloch young men in the law-enforcement agencies, particularly paramilitary forces, relaxing educational and other requirements needed for the posts.
The committee had urged that Baloch leaders should always be represented on board which takes major decisions. It called for frequent consultations for the purpose. The committee is determined to get all of its recommendations implemented by the government, involving the president directly. It will keep monitoring the pace of implementation.
President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had reportedly approved 27 recommendations of the 31 submitted by the Mushahid Committee sub-committee. According to some sources, following the recommendations were made earlier by the committee:
* Natural gas royalty payments would be gradually increased from about Rs7 billion yearly to Rs15 billion over the next five years. The provincial government will be obliged to spend at least 15 per cent of this sum on development in the relevant local areas.
* The cantonment proposed for the Sui area would now be built in the Mazari area, about 40 km from Sui, and not in the Bugti area.
* Settlers in Gwadar would have the right to vote in local polls only and not in the elections to the Provincial and National assemblies.
* Only Baloch citizens would be appointed heads of the Gwadar Port Authority and the Gwadar Development Authority.
* Sixty percent of the members of the board of governors of the Gwadar Authority would be residents of Balochistan.
The package is mainly aimed at finding a negotiated settlement of the problems as the resolution of these problem is very important for the development and completion of mega projects in the province.
There have been complaints from some nationalist leaders about allotment of land in Gwadar to government servants and others. Future modern industrial city of Gwadar would be the hub of industrial and commercial activities. The value of land of the local population, barren or cultivable, will skyrocket in Gwadar in particular and in Mekran in general after completion of Gwadar port and other projects. Their immovable properties and estates in coastal Balochistan would make them rich overnight.
It is the time for local builders, businessmen and all those who are rich to come forward and invest in Gwadar. If builders from other provinces are active in Gwadar, they may purchase land for housing schemes accommodating their own people in Gwadar to avoid demographic imbalance. This would be their real service to the local population.
Similarly, creating technical hands and building capacities among local people, would be a great service to people of this backward province.
While enumerating the causes of the apparent divorce between economic growth and social and human development in Pakistan, Dr Mehboob-ul- Haq said, "a very skewed income distribution, the absence of any meaningful land reforms, and political domination by a rentier class’.
The sense of alienation in the province can be removed by bringing local people on board and making them partners in the development. Their active involvement can help winning their confidence vis-à-vis ongoing development process.
It is for the first time that centre looks serious to address the pressing development needs and rectify the years of neglect and discrimination, though this cannot be rectified overnight.
The special package prepared by the federal government should be implemented on priority basis and in letter and spirit. It is a good step that the parliamentary committee has also announced the formation of a special committee to implement those recommendations.
http://www.dawn.com/2005/07/04/ebr8.htm |
