Islamabad : Director-General of Gwadar Development Authority (GDA) Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Qambrani has said that Gwadar had the potential to transform the lives not only of the people of Balochistan but the whole country.
Mr Rehman was speaking at a roundtable discussion organised by the Institute of Regional Studies (IRS) here Thursday.
Brie1ng the participants about the recent and upcoming developments in Gwadar, Mr. Qambrani shared that water supply to Gwadar had been increased from various dams in the vicinity and the pipeline network was upgraded to meet the needs of the growing city. He informed that a desalination plant for making use of the seawater in times of low availability of water in the dams was also scheduled to be completed by March 2023.
He shared that to meet the growing energy needs of the city, the government had signed a new agreement with the Iranian government for power supply to Gwadar. He added that a coal-based power plant with a capacity of producing 300 MW of electricity was also in the pipeline along with the establishment of solar parks to generate energy from renewable sources.
The DG GDA shared that the New Gwadar International Airport was scheduled to be operational by Sept 2023 but the 1st test flight from the airport was scheduled for March 2023. He said that the New Gwadar International Airport was one of the largest airports of the region that could handle the largest aircraft like the Airbus A-380.
He also briefed the audience about all the planned health, educational, sports, cultural, and tourist facilities that had been recently established or were in the pipeline for Gwadar. He added that the government had recently approved a tourism policy for Gwadar. He was of the view that Gwadar had the potential to become one of the most attractive tourist destinations of the world. He said that road access from Karachi to Gwadar and Quetta to Gwadar had been considerably improved and added that the latter route was instrumental in connectivity through the western corridor of CPEC passing through the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Mr Qambrani observed that the master plan of Gwadar was inspired from the master plan of the Chinese port city of Shenzhen. He said that instead of opting for relocating the local population of the city, the GDA had launched a Rs 3.3 billion project for the rehabilitation of the old town. He urged the think-tanks to play their role in creating awareness about Gwadar and counter public misperceptions.
Other speakers at the roundtable were Pakistan’s former ambassador to China Naghmana Hashmi, CEO of the KP Board of Investment and Trade Hassaan Daoud Butt and President IRS Nadeem Riyaz.
