by Tahir Ali

 

PESHAWAR, Dec.30 (Gwadar Pro) - With its north-south geographical lay of the land, Pakistan relies on the system of roads that connect different areas with one another.  The Hakla Dera Ismail Khan Motorway, a project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is a ‘mini-revolution’ in terms of connectivity for the southern parts of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province that will ultimately lead to social and economic prosperity in the area, says Faisal Amin Khan Gandapur, Member Wildlife and Biodiversity Board KP.

  

“In our times, motorways are a vital part of connectivity and infrastructure, to bring development and welfare to areas which had remained undeveloped and poor for so long that only militants and smugglers could earn a living,”Faisal added, “Now, with the 292 km long Hakla DI Khan Motorway, a mega-project in the western alignment of CPEC, it is finally possible to bring such areas into the 21st century.  The motorway will automatically bring with it the rest of the infrastructures people need to live -- jobs, schools, health facilities, markets.  These will bring local progress and prosperity.  The inter-connectivity with other areas of KP and other provinces of Pakistan will finally allow the hard-working but long-neglected communities who traditionally live here since centuries, to have access to all the essentials any community needs to live and prosper.”

  

Hakla DI Khan Motorway is 292-km (initially 285) long mega project under Western Alignment of CPEC. The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) of Pakistan had approved the project in 2016 with an estimated cost of Rs. 122,181 million.

 

Faisal Amin Khan Gandapur who represents DI Khan city in the provincial assembly of KP, said, “The project is going to change not only the economic conditions of KP’s southern districts like DI Khan, Lakki Marwat, Bannu and South Waziristan and but many parts of Balochistan and Punjab would also benefit from it”.

 

The construction work of Hakla DI Khan Motorway has entered its final phase. According to the National Highway Authority (NHA), the motorway will be operational in June 2021 to the public.

 

 

The Hakla-DI Khan motorway is also linking several mainstreaming  towns of Punjab with the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad and DI Khan. It begins from Hakla Interchange near Islamabad and passes through the towns of Pindigheb, Fateh Jang, and Isakhel (Mianwali) towns of Punjab to reach Yarik Interchange in DI Khan.

 

With the completion of the motorway, travel time between Islamabad and DI Khan would be reduced from six hours to less than three hours.

 

  

Being the center of the country, geographically DI Khan is a very important area of Pakistan, hence the Hakla DI Khan motorway is not the sole connectivity project. The Government has additional similar projects for DI Khan. ECNEC has already approved the Zhob-Quetta (N-50) project, a 350-km long motorway under the western alignment of CPEC. Once both motorways are completed, then little work is required to connect both the routes with each other.

 

Similarly, the KP Government approved the 360-km Peshawar-Dera Ismail Khan Motorway (non-CPEC) project on December 21. The motorway will pass through Kohat, Lakki Marwat, Tank, and Bannu districts to reach DI Khan. The Peshawar-DI Khan motorway will bisect Hakla-DI Khan motorway at Yarak area of DI Khan district. The motorway coming to DI Khan from Islamabad and the motorway coming to DI Khan from Peshawar -- these are going to connect the center of Pakistan to all directions. Angoor Adda (on the Pak-Afghan border) will also become accessible via Tank-South Waziristan route from Zhob or from DI Khan.

 

The connectivity will indirectly benefit so many businesses -- for example, local farmers will have direct access to markets in major cities.  “Due to inaccessibility to markets, usually the farmers are exploited by the middleman,” said Faisal Amin, adding that with connectivity the farmers will get more values for their products. “With private partnership, the Government is putting in industries that are agri-pro, so this zone can become literally the bread market of KP and the merged districts (ex-Fata) at least,” he said.

 

The soil of KP’s southern Tank district is favorable for tomato cultivation. Local tribesmen cultivate tomatoes for household consumption and for commercial purposes. However, there is no tomato-processing unit in the area, so the farmers are compelled to sell their products at harvest time and receive low prices. Due to lack of connectivity, the farmers are unable to take their products directly to the country’s major markets. “Buyers in the form of exporters or processors exploit us,” Khanzada Bittani, a tomato grower from Umar Adda, Tank, told Gwadar Pro.  “The motorways will provide us with easy and cheaper access to the Mandi (markets) of Islamabad and other cities,” he said.

 

    

The Dhakki area in DI Khan produces one of the finest varieties of date palms. The dates of Dhakki have established their place in local and international markets due to their exotic taste. However, the area lacks processing and packing facilities and the local farmers are forced to sell their raw products at very cheap prices. “The date growers of Dhakki sell more than 400 trucks of dates annually to non-local traders; the traders process and export the dates to foreign country at very high prices,” Muhammad Ismail Dhakki, a date grower from Dhakki told Gwadar Pro. According to him, local farmers have established date palm nurseries and people from all around the country come to buy the saplings. “We have orders for the saplings from different parts of the country and even from abroad but we cannot transport them as the journey is too long -- so I hope that the motorways will solve our problem,” he said.

 

 

With the completion of motorways, a new era of tourism would begin in the southern parts of KP. To this end, Faisal Amin Khan has redoubled his efforts to promote and preserve the unique biodiversity and cultural heritage of southern KP under Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Protected Areas Initiative. 

 

 

DI Khan is home to several historical places such as pre-Islamic Bilot Fort, pre-Harappan Rehman Deri, tombs of Lal Mahra (13th century), Shaikh Badin, the summer headquarters of Derajat Division in 1863 of the British and Takht-e-Sulaiman, the legendary mountain of Prophet Solomon PBUH which is also burial place of Qais Abdur Rasheed, the ancestor of all Pashtun tribes. The Sulaiman Mountain Range, at the border of KP and Balochistan, is also home to the endangered Sulaiman Markhor/Urial and comprises one of world’s largest chilgoza pine forest.