“You will not find anywhere else in the world where people have to travel 1,400 kilometers to buy a product that is available 25 kilometers away.”
Aminullah Baloch is one of the residents of a region in Pakistan and near the border of Iran, whose people are facing a strange problem during the period of inflation and economic problems. The goods they need for daily life are available at cheap prices only 25 kilometers from where they live, but they are not allowed to go there.
For this reason, they have to endure a difficult and exhausting journey to access ordinary goods, which, according to him, is nothing short of torture.
You definitely think that there is a valid reason that the people of this region have to deal with such a problem?
The answer to this question is very simple. This area is located in the Mashkil division of Washak district of Balochistan, Pakistan, where desert sands are widespread, but shade, water and roads are rare.
This area, which is located about 700 km southwest of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, is also deprived of access to an asphalt road. However, until a few years ago, this deprivation was not as noticeable as it is now, because the local people could buy the goods they needed at a very reasonable price from the border area inside Iran, which is only 25 kilometers away from them. .
In addition, the biggest source of income for the residents of this desert area was also related to the border of Iran; The income obtained from the smuggling of Iranian oil and fuel.
But a few years ago, border control became stricter, and after restrictions were imposed, it was no longer possible to buy and sell cheap Iranian goods. After that, according to local residents, they had to buy the goods they needed, sometimes 400 times more expensive, from the city of Quetta, which is 1,400 kilometers away. They say that after border restrictions are imposed, even cheap Iranian goods will be sold at a higher price.
But the situation in this region has not always been like this. Ahmed Bakhsh Lehri, the former secretary general of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, has been serving as the deputy director of Chagai border district for a long time. According to him, “in the past, based on the border agreement, the shepherds of both countries were allowed to travel up to 60 kilometers inside the border of the other country. People from both sides could take their goods to sell up to 60 kilometers inside each other’s borders.
It should be noted that the livelihood and employment of people in most of the border areas of Pakistan’s Balochistan with Iran and Afghanistan depend on the border crossings. Residents of five districts of Baluchistan province, which border with Iran, look to Iran for their food supply. These five districts are Chagai, Washak, Panjgur, Kich and Gwadar.
The officials of the Tax and Customs Department of Pakistan have always believed that smuggling of goods is carried out on a large scale on the border of Balochistan, which causes irreparable damage to the economy and industry of this country.
