TURBAT, Nov 16: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Thursday inaugurated the Mirani Dam and sought support of the people of Balochistan against `anti-development and retrogressive elements’ to steer the province into a new era of prosperity.

He said on the occasion that there were a handful of anti-development elements which were opposed to Balochistan's development as it came in conflict with their petty interests.

“These elements do not want to see Balochistan develop and progress and want to keep the people illiterate and backward to serve their own interests,” he said.

He sought people's support against such elements and said the government would never allow anyone to challenge the writ of the law.

“Pakistan comes first; we are because of Pakistan,” he said.

He reiterated his resolve to develop Balochistan and said the government had allocated and would continue to provide resources to improve the standard of living of the people of the province.

The president said he would inaugurate the Subakzai dam in March.

President Musharraf also urged people to vote in the next general elections for moderate and progressive people who wanted to take Pakistan forward as a developed country.

“The election 2007 is very important and the future of Pakistan depends on it,” the president said, urging people to reject retrogressive forces.

“There is no place for extremism and terrorism in Pakistan,” he said.

“Balochistan must demand what it needs and we are ready to give it,” the president said.

The Mirani Dam in Kech area of Makran district with a catchment area of 12,000 square kilometres has been built at a cost of Rs6 billion, including Rs1.5 billion paid in compensation to the affected people. It will have a storage capacity of over 300,000 million acre-feet of water. The project launched in 2002 was conceived in 1956.

President Musharraf said the dam was part of Water Vision 2025 he had launched in 2002 to plan to meet the looming shortfall.

Under the vision, he said, the government would construct many dams, including the Kalabagh, Basha, Munda and Kurrum Tangi dams and several water reservoirs by 2016. He said the county was facing a shortfall of nine million acre-feet of water and it would swell to 30 million acre-feet if no dam was built. He said 35 million acre-feet of water went waste every year as there was no capacity for storage.

He said Balochistan was not getting its share in the absence of canals to channel the water into the province.

He said the government was constructing the Rs40 billion Katchi canal and Punjab had provided land for its 350km-long stretch that would pass through the province.

The president said the federal government had given Rs100 million to each district nazim in Balochistan and Rs2.5 billion to the province’s MNAs and MPAs for development projects.

He said a package would be announced for Balochistan, which would include quota in good colleges and universities for students from the province and their free boarding, besides facilitating admissions to technical institutions.

He said 20 students from Balochistan had been accommodated in the first technical school recently opened by the Lahore corps.

The president said organisations like the Pakistan Ordnance Factory and the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra had been asked to train people from Balochistan and create job opportunities for them.

On the demand of the local nazim, the president announced that campuses of the Balochistan University would be opened in Gwadar and Turbat.

He promised to provide bulldozers for the area so that development activity could be started there.

The president said the government was looking into the possibility of writing off agriculture loans of poor farmers.

He asked the private sector to set up factories in the area.

Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousaf said the development projects initiated by the president had brought about a revolution in the province.--APP