ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said that the highest number of mining licences in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were issued during the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) provincial governments.
In a statement on social media platform X, Khawaja Asif said only 482 mining licences or titles had been issued in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from the establishment of Pakistan until 2010.
He said the number increased sharply during PTI’s provincial governments, reaching 1,762 by 2020 and 3,962 by February 2024. The total number of mining licences issued in the province has now reached 4,917, including 4,133 in settled districts and 784 in merged districts.
Khawaja Asif clarified that the military organisation Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) had received only one licence during this period. The licence was issued in 2015 for the Boya area of North Waziristan, where FWO had been engaged in construction and rehabilitation work.
He said more than 500 new applications were currently under consideration, none of which had been submitted by a military organisation.
The defence minister maintained that most mining licences in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were issued during PTI’s tenure, adding that military institutions had no direct involvement in the sector apart from the single licence granted to FWO.
