Locals welcome opening of Singoor bridge

CHITRAL: A new bridge constructed over river Chitral in front of Singoor village was on Thursday opened to traffic.

The opening of the bridge was welcomed by the locals, especially those living in Singoor and other villages and thousands of students coming to the area from different parts of Chitral who had to take a long detour in the past.

The construction of the 80 ton carrying capacity bridge was completed by the engineering corps of the army on Sept 8.  

According to Shahzada Sirajul Mulk, this project had been listed in the KP’s annual work plan for the financial year 2016-2017 but its file continued collecting dust without seeing the light of day.  

“Luckily it caught the attention of Comd. 11 Corps Lt Gen Nauman Mahmood during his very first visit to Chitral in Aug 2020. He was intrigued to know that a sizeable population living on either side of a river of 100 metre span had to drive for twenty minutes to cross it. He also foresaw that such a bridge will inevitably be needed when the road gets constructed over the Dorah pass to Afghanistan,” he said.

When Col (now Brig) Ali Zafar of Chitral Scouts was informed of Gen Nauman’s intentions to build this bridge, he took no time to recover its dusty file from C&W  Chitral (courtesy XEN Maqbool Azam who was then in Bajaur) and have it sent to Hq 11 Corps the very day after Gen Nauman left Chitral. Suddenly, the rusty dusty file got wings to fly. 

Work started on 10 Sept 2020 on the bridge. Gen Bangash had promised that he would complete the project within one year.–Bashir Hussain Azad