ADB to sponsor road network in Balochistan

A road improvement assistance package worth about US $187 million has been approved by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the southwestern province of Balochistan, Pakistan's largest and most underdeveloped region, according to an ADB official. "We are providing 70 percent [$187 million] of the total cost [$267.3 million]," Marshuk Ali Shah, the ADB country director for Pakistan, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday. The Pakistani government will provide the balance of the cost. The Balochistan Road Development Sector Project would support institutional development, improvement of provincial roads and national highways, as well as the construction of a new cross-border facility into Afghanistan, an earlier ADB press release said. About half the rural villages in Balochistan had poor roads, or no roads at all, and poverty levels in some areas approached 70 percent, with gravel roads or dirt tracks representing 90 percent of the provincial road network - most of which had been deteriorating due to increased traffic, under-investment and lack of maintenance, it added. "Basically, the project is divided into two components," Shah explained, adding that the first of these would focus on poverty alleviation. About 500,000 people, of whom 200,000 were classified as poor, were expected to benefit from the project, the media release said. All the roads to be repaired as part of the project were market roads, Shah stressed. "At the request of the government, we have added a component providing a network from Chaman [on the border with Afghanistan] to [the southern port city of] Karachi, and beyond: to Qasim and Gwadar ports," he added. The project would improve and widen nearly 250 km of a national highway network from Kalat, in the north, to Quetta, and on to Chaman, where a new cross-border facility would be built and equipped with modern systems and equipment, the press release said. Staff employed at the facility would be trained, with ADB assistance, in immigration, security, customs, weight-stations and other border duties, it added. "The reason is because we are also funding a road network in Afghanistan worth $150 million. That will essentially be a ring road around the country, leading up to the northwest of Afghanistan," Shah said. "This is ADB's first road project in Pakistan that supports regional cooperation through physical improvements and capacity building," the press statement said, adding that the bank recognised the fact that Pakistan, with Balochistan in particular, was geographically well placed to play an increasing role in regional cooperation, linking landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia to South Asia more closely.