‘Protests will restart if loadshedding and other issues not resolved’

BOONI: One year after the already broken down roads were cut and dug to lay optic fiber lines in Mastuj, Warijun and  Shagram, the department concerned has failed to make the facility functional in these areas of Upper Chitral.

While the public is suffering due to the broken roads, after the COVID-19 pandemic and closure of educational institutions, students in these areas are also unable to attend online classes. Despite holding protests, their issue is yet to be resolved.

There is also an urgent need to launch 3G and 4G service in the whole area. Besides, Telenor, which provide mobile phone service, in most of the un-served areas of Chitral, has failed to improve its service.

These and others burning issues of Upper Chitral were discussed at a meeting of Tehreek Huqooq-e-Awam held at the house of Mukhtar Lal and attended by office-bearers of the Tehreek and a large number of people on Wednesday, says a press release sent to ChitralToday. 

The participants of the meeting came down hard on the district administration for its utter failure to get public issues resolved, especially the unending power outages.

They regretted that even after the commissioning of the 108 megawatt Golen Gol powerhouse the new district was not being given its share and the area still faced the crisis.

They said the MNA and minority MPA had told the area people that an amount of Rs150 million had been approved for the setting up of a separate grid station for Upper Chitral but work on it is yet to be started.

The officials of PEDO sometimes make the excuse of poor transmission lines and sometimes shortage of water in Golen Gol, but in the winter there is always an abundance of water for the powerhouse but even then Upper Chitral is not being provided electricity.

The participants said due to red tape and their callous attitude towards public issues the government officials were forcing the people of Upper Chitral to take to the streets.

Moreover, it was also pointed out that so far the government has not appointed a full-time district health officer (DHO) for Upper Chitral and the DHO Lower Chitral is looking after the health-related issues of the new district.

The meeting demanded that the DHO should perform duty from the headquarters of Upper Chitral district and if he does not want to come to Booni, a new DHO should be appointed for Upper Chitral.

The participants in a resolution asked the government  departments to resolve all these issues by July 7 otherwise the Tehreek would be left with no other options but to mobilize the masses for a protest movement.