Probe ordered against contractor for incomplete road repair
Gul Hamaad Farooqi
CHITRAL: Probe ordered against contractor for incomplete repair work on Garam Chashma road causing hardships to commuters.
The probe was ordered by Commissioner Malakand Division Zaheerul Islam at an open forum (Katchery) held in the town hall. Deputy Commissioner Hassan Abid and a large number of people participated in the open forum.
District Bar Association President Niaz A. Niazi Advocate said the Garam Chashma road has been handed over to the National Highway Authority (NHA) which floated a tender for its maintenance and repair. But the work was stopped by the contractor in July who put material on the road, causing severe inconvenience to commuters.
Before the recent visit of the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Chitral, the contractor started blacktopping the road by closing the traffic. But when the chief minister left the town, the work was again stopped and all the machinery was shifted to another place overnight.
Niazi said that it was nothing but cheating, betrayal of people and throwing dust in the eyes of the government.
The commissioner directed the deputy commissioner to Inquire the matter and take legal action against the contractor and the staff involved in the department.
Abdul Majeed Qureshi said the roads of Kailash valleys are in poor condition bad and hundreds of tourists visit this area and faced lots of hardship.
Inayatullah Asir said that a technical college building was occupied for Chitral University which affected hundreds of students learning technical education.
He said that hundreds of acres of land had been purchased for University of Chitral at Saeadabad but work on its building had not started yet which was causing great hardship to the people.
Although land was purchased for this in 2016 and a grant of Rs2.5 billion has been given, not a single block has been built yet.
Muhkam Uuddin Ayuni said that the land for the Women’s Degree College in Ayun was purchased a few years ago but the work on it is stalled and the students of this valley have to go far to get education.
Amir Ali said that Chitral is a land of water but people are thirsty and the land is dry. In addition, the contractor who is given the contract of road construction does not have any machinery. Legal action should be taken against the contractors who do not have labor or machinery.
Some people objected that first Jamaat-e-Islami had organized a tournament in Chitral and now the PTI was holding another tournament. Later, some other political parties will hold tournament, causing wasting of time of youth.
Addressing the open forum, the commissioner said that he was very grateful to the people of Chitral for enduring hardships for decades but never taking the law into their own hands.
Now Malakand Division is being divided into two parts which will solve many problems of this region. He urged the heads of all line departments to solve the problems of the people. He said that in the next few months many roads would be constructed in Chitral for the first time in the last 73 years.
It is good to raise the issue of repair road to Garamchashma.
The sane advocate Niazi also chairs human rights commission criminally neglected and still neglects human rights violation in Chitral especially a recent incident of a Kalash girl endures.
Shame of his advocacy doing politics without doing his duty-bound responsibility.