Forest royalty holders warn govt against delay in payment

CHITRAL, Feb 4: The royalty holders of forest in Chitral have warned the government that if the amount of royalty was not paid to them within a week  they will stop  transportation of timber out of the district. Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Haji Mohammad Shafa and Haji Sher Mohammad from Chitral and Mehmood Khan from Upper Dir said  the managing director of the Forest Development Corporation (FDC) was deliberately delaying the payment to them for his personal gains. They alleged that the managing director had deposited the royalty amount in a bank and was drawing the profit by delaying the payment to the royalty holders. They said that the delay in payment is also causing a loss to the kitty of the provincial government as forty percent of the income of the timber goes to the government treasury. The royalty holders said that the people of forest areas suffered from abject poverty as they no have no other source of sustenance except that of the royalty of forest for which they waited for years. They said that the inordinate delay in the payment of royalty has caused tremendous hardships for them and they will go to take extreme steps if they are fretted any more. “We have determined to vehemently resist the harvesting of the marked trees in the forest and the transportation of already harvested timber from the area”, they said.–Zahiruddin]]>