The government, Mr Gilani said, was taking practical steps to remove the Baloch people's sense of deprivation. - Photo by APP.

QUETTA The government will fight for Balochistan's rights and take steps to strengthen all provinces, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Tuesday.

Addressing a ceremony to inaugurate the Labour Colony in Gwadar, he said “People of Balochistan will get their constitutional, political, administrative and economic rights.”

He reiterated that the government would continue its efforts to restore the province's economic and political rights, citing the recently initiated Aghaz-i-Haquq-i-Balochistan package as a beginning.

The prime minister was accompanied by Balochistan Governor Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani, federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira and other federal and provincial ministers.

The government, Mr Gilani said, was taking practical steps to remove the Baloch people's sense of deprivation.

He said the government firmly believed in politics of reconciliation. “Consensus NFC award is a proof of the success of our reconciliatory policy.” Pledging to bolster democracy and uphold the Constitution, he said after 19 years, a consensus award would be signed in Gwadar on Wednesday.

Talking about the work of the National Assembly's constitutional reforms committee, he said that the government would remove all black laws introduced by former president Pervez Musharraf and restore the 1973 Constitution in its original form.

Cautioning against repeating past mistakes which had hurt national interest, he said that the country would develop only if all institutions worked within their limits.

Recalling the achievements of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto who, according to him, had strengthened the federation, he said that the PPP's ideology was to empower people.

“It was Z.A. Bhutto who had given the country its nuclear programme and the Constitution.”

“They sacrificed their lives for the country and the people,” Mr. Gilani said. He said that PPP was the symbol of federation, adding that it was the only entity which unified all federating units.

Prime Minister Gilani said that he had been informed that 20,000 people, including 3,000 women, had so far applied for the 5,000 jobs announced by the federal government for Balochistan's youths.

He said that he had issued orders to strictly scrutinise the applicants' documents to ensure that all jobs were given to the youths of Balochistan. He said that the government would try its best to accommodate all applicants.

Vocational institutes would be established in Gwadar and other areas of the province to train the youths and help them get better jobs abroad, the prime minister said.

The prime minister said that steps were being taken to overcome the shortage of clean drinking water in Gwadar and holding of the federal cabinet meeting there was part of a strategy to highlight the port city's importance.

He said that besides the Benazir Income Support Programme, the government was trying to provide health and insurance facilities to women all over the country. He said that a new labour policy, containing more incentives, would be announced soon.

Earlier, Federal Labour Minister, Syed Khurshid Shah, and Balochistan Labour Minister Maulana Sarwar spoke at the occasion. The prime minister distributed house ownership documents among 100 labourers.