Kohlu, a rural district, is connected with other parts of the province and the country by shingle roads only. Telephone facilities are available in 2 towns only and electricity in 4 towns. Gas is not available. The banking facility is limited to Kohlu town only and postal services are not available to all the villages. Radio and television ownership is not registered.

The total length of roads within the district is 986 kilometres, all shingle. About one third (331 km) was constructed and is maintained by the provincial Buildings and Roads (B&R) Division of the Communications and Works (C&W) Department. The remaining length is actually still under construction but can already be used. These roads connect Kohlu district with Sibi and Rakhni. Apart from lack of appropriate funds, uncooperative attitude of the local elite has also hindered the progress of this project. The work was started in the eighties and it is still incomplete. Now the National Logistics Cell (NLC) has started work to complete this assignment. Non-availability, and sometimes improper utilisation, of development budget and highly unfavourable cost-benefit analyses are two major factors behind non-existence of metalled roads in the district.

Non-availability of black top roads in the district has hampered transportation and, consequently, trade activities on a widespread scale. Due to high maintenance costs of the vehicles, transporters demand high fares. Some areas do not even have shingle roads, as a result of which agriculture products cannot be marketed.

Since Kohlu is, administratively, a Political Agency, owners of the private motor-vehicles do not bother to register their vehicles with the Motor-vehicle Registration Authority. Only a few government vehicles do have registration numbers issued from Kohlu. There are a limited number of vehicles registered in other districts like Loralai and Dera Ghazi Khan. Some illegally imported vehicles have also been seen in Kohlu. These vehicles have fake number plates but no authority put a check on them.

Many pick-ups ply between Kohlu and different neighbouring towns in the area including Barkhan, Rakhni, Mawand and Kahan. From Rakhni one can take the bus or van for Loralai and Dera Ghazi Khan which are well connected to other part of the country. The main route of public transport is via Rakhni-Barkhan.

The district has neither railways nor air links to other parts of the country.

A booster station has been established in Kohlu to increase the reception range for Pakistan Television’s transmissions. Only some people have television sets and hardly any of them pays Ptv licence fee. Therefore, no records about the number of television sets is available. The same is the situation for radio ownership. There is no local radio station and people listen to broadcasts from Multan, Loralai (test transmission only) and Quetta stations.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has established telephone exchanges in two towns of Kohlu district: Kohlu and Mawand. At present, an EMD telephone exchange at Kohlu is with a capacity of 200 lines out of which 153 connections are working. A magnetic exchange at Mawand with a capacity of 30 lines is providing connection to 11 subscribers. At present 2 extra-departmental public call offices and 8 VHF/LD,L&W public call offices have also been established in the district. A Customer Services Centre has recently been inaugurated at Kohlu which will serve as a public call office as well. Fax or data-transfer services are not available in the district.

The Pakistan Postal Services Corporation has established a post office at Kohlu town which is the only postal service facility in the entire district. Mail is distributed to the other localities on self-help basis. The inhabitants of the other villages take their mail home whenever they visit Kohlu town. Urgent Mail Service is the only special mail service available at Kohlu. At present, no courier service is available in the district.

Kohlu district has only two banks at its district headquarters: the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) and the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan (ADBP). The NBP provides commercial banking services to the residents and functions as a treasury bank on behalf of the State Bank of Pakistan. The major part of transactions concerns government money.

The Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan at Kohlu was established in 1992. The basic function of the bank is to provide loans to the farmers for agricultural development. In the last three years (1994-97) the bank has lent an amount of rupees 2,368,710 to the farmers and an amount of rupees 3,060,911 was recovered. The available statistics show an inverse trend in lending and recoveries over the years.

According to the procedure laid down for sanctioning a loan by the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan, agricultural land is mortgaged and a loan up to 66 percent of its value can be provided on which 14.5 percent mark-up is charged. Sometimes, a personal guarantee is accepted if the required loan is less than 30 thousand rupees. Usually, the loan is used to purchase a tractor or to install a tubewell. Any type of agriculture based industry can also be financed under the bank’s manifesto. Credit is also given for things like seeds and fertilisers.

In Kohlu district, only 4 towns have been supplied with electricity up to February 1997. Electricity is supplied to 3 towns through Kohlu feeder of Barkhan grid station while Kahan has its own power generation station of 50 kV capacity. A 33 kV transmission line from Barkhan to Kohlu and 11 kV line form Kohlu to Mawand has been laid down for electricity supply. Up to mid 1997, electricity was provided to 696 consumers out of which 528 were domestic connections, 135 commercial, 24 connections for running tubewells, 5 connections for bulk supply and 4 as B-1 connections. There has been a 146.8 percent increase in electricity connections over a period of 5 years. The major increase was in domestic connections.

The WAPDA is responsible for service provision and collection of revenue. There remains a continuos tussle between WAPDA officials and the consumers over non-payment of bills. The consumers have the excuse of under-development and demand for subsidies. It is difficult for the WAPDA officials to disconnect power supply because people react aggressively if such an effort is made. In such circumstances, the overall realisation of the assessed revenue (1.5 million rupees) from Kohlu district is not more than 10 percent (0.15 million rupees).

Kohlu district does not have access to gas through pipelines. However a few people use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), available in cylinders, for cooking. These cylinders are brought from Dera Ghazi Khan or Loralai.

There is only one rest house in the district at Kohlu, owned by the B&R division. This rest house provides accommodation for visitors, but does not play a role in the development of the tourism sector.

Most of the economic infrastructure and communications are developed and managed by the government, either federal or provincial. The private sector is involved in transport only. Control of all these sectors by government creates a non-competitive atmosphere which ultimately hampers socio-economic development.

Kohlu is connected to other parts of the country by shingle roads only. Development of any area is hard to imagine without roads. Therefore it may be imperative to construct metalled roads and link farms to markets by more shingle roads.

At present the majority of the areas is deprived of basic amenities like electricity, telephone and gas. Electricity is the most demanded facility, both for lighting and tubewells to irrigate the fields. Postal services need to be expanded and improved.

The Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan should play its crucial role in agricultural development more effectively. Another issue in this respect, is that this bank should also provide credit facilities for women to encourage their participation in handicraft and livestock.