GARAM CHASHMA: The Garam Chashma road was damaged beyond repair in the 2015 floods and after the passage of over five years it could not be brought to the pre-flood condition.
Due to lack of maintenance, the road’s condition has further deteriorated and despite appeals and protests by local people, the dilapidated road was not reconstructed.
On self-help basis, however, people of different villages kept on repairing the road. But as the reconstruction needs heavy machinery and resources, the repair works brought only temporary relief to commuters.
But over five years down the bumpy road, there is now a ray of hope. The road was recently handed over to the National Highway Authority (NHA) and the authority has floated tender for the reconstruction of the road.
Muhammad Ali of Garam Chashma told ChitralToday that for the last over six years no repair work has been done on the road by the government.
Former councillor Qimat Shah Aziz told ChitralToday that he has been hearing about allocation of funds for construction of the road for years but without any practical work.
The locals said political leaders and government agencies would have to work jointly in order to launch work on the project to facilitate thousands of people of Garam Chashma.
2015 floods inundated about 10 km of Garamchashma road at different portions between Rundur and Murdan. The people of the affected valleys repaired all the badly damaged portions with several days hard struggle. I have seen hundreds of people engaged in this unprecedented amount of self help for days at a stretch. Those not able to participate physically, had lavishly offered their goats, sheep, chicken, rice, flour, wood and other items as needed. No other agency was seen extending support at the nick of time. Ironically enough the credit was given to Maqbool engineer of C&W at a ceremony held in Drosh at a later date, the one who was despatched to DIK or Bannu jail on charges of corruption. Who grabbed the money for rehabilitation of flood damages of G.Chashma and other roads should be known yet.