Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land and the richest in mineral resources. Nature has blessed this land with gold, silver, gas, oil, coal and other minerals. But, despite all this, Balochistan is the most backward and poorest part in this country.
Gwadar is called the CPEC [China Pakistan Economic Corridor] city. But no one estimates the poor conditions of the people of Gwadar. The mainstream media only covers the solely made cricket stadium and the only road, but they do not show the very pity state of the fishermen and other locals who are thirsty of water and employment respectively, in fact.
Not only Gwadar but in many other parts of Balochistan, too, our mothers and sisters travel miles on feet to fetch water. In the cities we do have motors to avail water from underground, but in most villages, electricity has not reached. Very sadly, in some villages the power of electricity is very low which cannot start a motor.
On the other hand, load shedding is on its peak. In some places, for around twenty hours there is no electricity – especially in the villages of Makran. This shortage of power has created unending hurdles for the people of Balochistan.
Besides this, Pakistan’s largest gas reserves are located in the Sui area of Dera Bugti [Balochistan]. Through this, gas is being delivered to entire Pakistan, but it is not yet available in Sui itself and Dera Bugti; other parts of Balochistan are an exception.
Another major problem in Balochistan is lack of doctors and medicines in government hospitals of the province. Doctors of civil hospitals have themselves built pharmacies in the hospitals’ premises to sell medicines, whereas, the poor patients never receive governmental medicines.
In other emergency cases, the patients are directed to move to Karachi because of unavailability of equipment and machineries. In contemporary, some other districts have no functional hospitals. The annual budget of hospitals in Balochistan is in crores of rupees, but it is not known where they are spent.
Coming to education, it plays an important role in the development of any nation. The secret of the nations that have advanced today is education. But unfortunately, no importance is being given to education in Balochistan. Most schools in Balochistan lack classrooms and teachers. There are some schools where the number of students is more than 500 but the teacher is only one. Alif Ailaan’s report [2017] estimates an average of 120 students per class with one teacher in Balochistan, which is very disheartening.
There are some teachers who are about to retire but have not given duty yet. The children of Balochistan are very fond of education, but unluckily, they are deprived of education due to lack of facilities.
Looking at the globalized era, internet is the need of hour. There are a lot of works being done through internet these days. It is also very necessary for students. But, misfortune again follows Balochistan here; most districts of Balochistan are deprived of access to internet. Quite fortunate for some cities, PTCL internet is available which is very slow. But, in some other areas, this PTCL internet is also a daydream. Data internet is a far cry.
Worryingly, when nuclear explosions took place in the mountains of Chaghi area of Balochistan, it caused several damages and diseases. The dangerous disease, cancer, also arose after this nuclear explosion. The nuclear tests were successful back in 1998, but till date Balochistan is not served with a cancer hospital. We need a cancer hospital in Balochistan and and an end to cancer of bad governance too which has longed Balochistan to multiple crisis. All eyes are kept on what policies the governments [Federal and provincial] bring to culminate the cries of Balochistan.