



The federal government on Thursday cleared six development schemes costing Rs130 billion including two strategically important projects under the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor, marking the beginning of a process that will transform the country into a transit hub for the second largest economy of the world.





The projects were cleared in a meeting of the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) – the body that has powers to approve up to Rs3 billion worth of projects and recommends those costing more to the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec). After CDWP’s green signal, Ecnec will give final approval.Minister of Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal chaired the CDWP meeting. The six projects recommended to Ecnec are related to transport and communications and the Higher Education Commission.One of the main projects is acquisition of land for the Gwadar free trade zone at a cost of Rs6.3 billion. This is part of the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor.For the establishment of the free trade zone, it is a contractual obligation to provide 2,281 acres of land, according to a handout issued by the Ministry of Planning and Development.Under the corridor, China will secure energy supplies through the Gwadar Port for its northwestern provinces aimed at reducing cost of doing business in addition to securing safer routes for supplies from Central Asia and Africa.Pakistan is also expected to get benefits from the initiative, as thousands of jobs will be created along the transit route, stretching over 2,000 km of roads. The national development agenda of the government would make Pakistan a fast-growing economy in Asia, said the planning minister.The CDWP recommended a project for acquiring land for 1,152km Karachi-Lahore Motorway at a rationalised cost of Rs55.5 billion against the original price of Rs60.5 billion. The project is also part of the economic corridor.The CDWP constituted a committee to further review the possibility of rationalising the cost.Similarly, construction of Karachi-Lahore Motorway was approved in principle. But the CDWP constituted a committee, to be chaired by Planning Secretary Hasan Nawaz Tarar, to rationalise the project cost.Iqbal advised sponsoring ministries to ensure due diligence in planning these mega projects to avoid frequent changes at the implementation stage. He also directed that project formulation should be based on technical feasibility studies.The CDWP also cleared 59km Hassanabdal-Havelian Expressway at a cost of Rs31 billion. The Asian Development Bank will provide 85% of the cost as loan.The committee cleared another road project – Kalat-Quetta-Chaman – for which the United States will provide a grant of $90 million. Under this project, a 250km road will be widened and improved. This project will help in opening up the area and provide road facilities of international standard to the users.The CDWP also recommended the prime minister’s programme for distributing laptops amongst young and bright students studying in any public sector higher education institute across the country on purely merit basis. The scheme is one of the initiatives launched under the Prime Minister’s Youth Scheme for 2013-14.This year, 100,000 laptops with an approximate cost of Rs37,500 per unit have been purchased off-the-shelf in accordance with the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority rules and will be distributed in the near future amongst the students as per defined criteria of the scheme, said the planning ministry.It added from next year tenders for the supply of laptops would have a specific requirement of establishing the assembly line by the supplier for local manufacturing of laptops. The government will distribute 500,000 laptops in five years.