Pak Govt fails to share revised CPEC plan with provinces

The Pakistan Government has failed to share the revised Long-Term Plan (LTP) of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which would be approved by the Joint Cooperation Council (JCC) on November 21 in Islamabad, The Express Tribune reported.

The Minister for Interior and Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal chaired a meeting on Wednesday, which was arranged for the representatives of the federal and provincial governments as well as special regions of the country ahead of the 7th JCC meeting.

The meeting was attended by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak and representatives of all four provinces and the special areas of the country.

According to the report, during the meeting, issues related to the implementation of USD 55 billion CPEC were discussed, however, the revised plan was not shared in the meeting.

Earlier this year, Pakistan had shared the draft of the LTP with China, after which Beijing proposed some changes in the plan that the Islamabad has not accepted yet.

"The federal government neither shared China's feedback nor the revised LTP plan with the provinces in the pre-JCC meeting," said an official of the provincial government.

However, the planning ministry said the draft of the original LTP was already shared with the provinces and there was no material change in the revised draft.

China came up with its One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative in 2013.

The project comprises a network of railways, roads and pipelines that would connect Pakistan's port city of Gwadar in the province of Balochistan, with the Chinese city of Kashgar in landlocked Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

The human rights activists have, time and again, spoken about and highlighted the growing atrocities of Pakistan on the indigenous people of Balochistan and deteriorating human rights situation as a result of the CPEC.

Earlier this month, on the day the supreme body of the Communist Party of China met for its 19th Congress in Beijing, the Baloch leadership in exile issued a strong warning to China to stop the CPEC or face on the ground consequences.

The CPEC passes across the disputed territory and is rejected by the Baloch as a "tool for exploiting the Baloch land.