After almost two decades of militancy, the people of North Waziristan district are finally going to experience state-of-the-art social and economic infrastructure. According to experts, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s merged district is going to be the next economic hub of Pakistan by 2023.
The northern part of Waziristan which is a mountainous region has exceptional potential to generate indispensable economic activity.
According to the details, North Waziristan has one of the largest copper minefields and plants along with chromite mines. And people do not even know that the biggest gas reserve in Pakistan has been discovered in Shewa- in the area of Spinwam.
Currently only one well is operational and that is being linked to the main gas line by SNGP. In Dossali South of Mir Ali in Damdail Gardai oil and gas have been found under 2 D survey before wells are dug. Moreover, with the help of the Chinese copper is being extracted and exported to China as our local demand for copper and chromite is very small.
The area has been facing the insurgency for past two decades and according to experts, the militants do not want the people to have their due royalty which they snatched from the people in the old times. All of these tribes are supposed to get millions of rupees in terms of royalty i.e. Muhammad Khel tribe in Boya gets approximately 63 million rupees as royalty every year. The rest of the areas even have more potential.
The other projects include Kaithu Weir which is on the Kaithu river that will irrigate two vast arid plains in NWD and Bannu, tourism potential around Razmak is also there. The area around Razmak was also called ‘Mini London’ by the British because of its weather and the cottages that still are there.
Along with the technical projects North Waziristan also has the world’s biggest pine nut forests and produces tons of dry fruit every year.
Due to the border terminal at Ghulam Khan, most of the coal is coming through this route, which earlier was being imported from Indonesia. This crossing is providing the shortest route to Khost in Afghanistan.
The expert said that the government and concerned authorities have started their projects to tell people about the economic potential of North Waziristan and that has already started attracting national and international investors.
