Small industrial estate in Darra Adam Khel: KP government fails to make even slight progress

Despite tall claims of establishing small industrial estate in Darra Adam Khel for promotion of small businesses in erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has failed to make a slight progress after passage of one-and-a-half-year.

Soon after FATA merger, the flamboyant KP Governor Shah Farman, had announced to turn the untidy buildings of Darra Adam Khel - an area known for its gun making business for more than a century - into small industrial estate but no progress has yet been made.

At a meeting of Senate Standing Committee on State and Frontier Regions (Safron), the arm dealers from Darra Adam Khel said the PTI government in KP is doing nothing to fulfill its promise but giving lollypop to the people who had been into the arms business for about a century.

An arm dealer, who wished not to be named, came down hard on the KP governor for what he said 'lying to the people of the area' and instead preferring to enjoy at his splashy Governor House in Peshawar.

"He's [Shah Farman] for nothing as he's not a man of actions. He promised to do a lot to further boost the industry but nothing has yet been materialized which has put the people of the industry at stake," he lamented.

After listening to the people associated with the industry, the Senate Committee Chairman Taj Muhammad Afridi, decided to pay a visit to the area next week along with the members of the panel.

Another arm dealer who also declined to be named said that a little attention from the government side will turn things around as the industry needs to be revived.

He said that there are dozens of weapons factories, manufacturing everything from semi-automatic AK-74 Kalashnikov assault rifle, crude copies of Chinese pistols to sophisticated facsimiles of the US-made M16 automatic rifle or the Austrian Glock semiautomatic pistol.

"The gunsmiths work industriously at a trade which has employed generations of craftsmen here in the Darra Adam Khel, but it's unfortunate to see the government not paying any heed to promote this industry," he flayed.

Gul Khan Wazir whose family has been into gun manufacturing business from British era, said that he's been pursuing the family business and will not allow any government to destroy this industry.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019