CHITRAL, 27 Mar 07: Tehsil Nazim Mastuj Shahzada Sikandar UlMulk has demanded of the president of Pakistan to rush to the rescue of the people of this remotest area of the country beleaguered by snow and unable to leave their valleys to fetch commodities of daily life.
Addressing a press conference here Tuesday, he said that the severe snowfall of the other days has badly affected the basic infrastructures and it needs billions of rupees for their redemption. He said that the roads within his tehsil are the worst affected whose length is more than 400 kilometers and acts like arteries for the sustenance of the people. He said that hundreds of water supply schemes have also gone out of order and it may take an ugly turn with the arrival of summer season due to the imminent water-borne diseases. He also mentioned damage to the hundreds of miles of the transmission lines of electricity in the tehsil.
Tehsil nazim said that the detailed assessment of the disaster is being compiled with the help of Aga Khan Rural Support Programme and Focus Humanitarian Assistance and remedial measures will be chalked out accordingly. Expressing his deep regrets, Shahzada Sikandar said that his tehsil municipal administration (TMA) is still without any heavy machinery like buldozers, chain dozers and others to restore the infrastructure and due to its enormous area and its vulnerability to natural hazards, at least four bulldozers must be kept stand by. He said that most of the valley roads could have been opened for vehicular traffic had there been such machinery available with the TMA.
He said that in case of half-hearted and ineffective steps by the government to rehabilitate the infrastructures, the tourism industry will be ruined. He said that two of the events in the calendar for the ‘Visit Pakistan Year 2007’ are to be celebrated in this tehsil which are Shandur festival and Baroghil festival.
Ismailimail 