Proposed route to Tajikistan via Chitral welcomed

Dawn,December 5, 2005

ISLAMABAD: People in Chitral have welcomed the
government's plan to construct a 90 million dollars road
through the Boroghil Pass in the Yarkhun valley to link
Pakistan with the Central Asian states.
They also hailed a Nespak (National Engineering Services of
Pakistan) pre-feasibility report recommending the Wakhan-Chitral
route for the import of 1,000 megawatts electricity from
Tajikistan to meet the country's burgeoning power demands.
They said the proposed projects would open up the district,
which remains cut off from the rest of the country in winter,
to new era of prosperity and development besides boosting the
national economy and regional trade.
According to reports, Federal Minister for Water and Power
Liaquat Ali Jatoi has asked Nespak to finalize and submit the
feasibility report of the road project to the federal cabinet
for approval.
Of the 13 passes which lead to Afghanistan from Chitral
district, the Boroghil Pass is the easiest and lowest in
altitude. The pass is very easy to travel over the undulating
Pamir and closes only for a very short period late in winter.
Wakhan is a 13 to 65km wide strategic strip in the northeast
of Afghanistan with a length of about 300km. The area links
Afghanistan with Pakistan in the south, Tajikistan in the north
and China in the east.
The Wakhan-Boroghil route has been preferred against the one
passing through the central parts of Afghanistan due to security
situation in the neighbouring country.
The road will connect the 12,484-foot-high Boroghil Pass at
the northwest of the Yarkhun valley in Chitral with Sarhad-i-Langar
in Wakhan at a distance of about 95km and move on to Iskashim in
Tajikistan leading to the Tajik capital Dushanbe via the Korung-
Kalai Chumb and Kulob areas.
From the Boroghil Pass, the road will traverse down the over
300-km-long valley and reach Peshawar. The distance from Tajikistan
to Peshawar via the Wakhan-Chitral route is estimated to be 700km.
From Mastuj in the upper Chitral, the road will also branch
off to the Northern Areas via the 10,500-foot-high Shandur Pass
and merge into the Karakorum Highway.
President Gen Pervez Musharraf has already sanctioned a number
of road projects aimed to inter-link the Northern Areas and
Chitral to develop the haggard communication network in the
area and promote tourism potential of the region.
To link Chitral with other parts of the country through an
all-weather route, the government has already sanctioned the
Rs7.9 billion Lowari rail tunnel project. Work on the project
is slated to begin in May, which will take four years for
completion.