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Punishment for Respecting Government’s Writ
-letter
This letter refers to a longstanding issue of
Yarkhoon, upper Chitral. The only suspension bridge
linking Yarkhoon valley with rest of the country was
completely washed away by a flashflood in August
2006. Lives of more than 16000 individuals living in
more than 20 small scattered villages are in trouble
since then. One can imagine the hardship faced by
the local population with regard to travel,
transportation of consumer’s goods, and accessing
lifeline facilities mainly located in main towns
such as Mastuj, Booni and Chitral with more than 200
Km average distance. Both social and economic life
of the people has severely been impacted adversely.
The response of the government has been terribly low
and inappropriate. Government has earmarked some
funds (may be insufficient) for reconstruction of
bridge but the implementation has been in the mercy
of the contractor who’s performance has been
extremely dissatisfactory and irresponsible. The
people of Chitral know well how positive is the
attitude of the contractors when it comes to the
quality and time span of the construction. The
contractor uses the short working session as good
excuse. This year the delay in the construction
activities and rising of water level has
automatically shifted the construction activities to
the nest year prolonging the miseries of the
inhabitants for one more year. It seems that nobody
seems concerned on this issue and responsible state
institutions and community organizations have been
waiting for unknown force to come and do the
needful.
This is one example of the discriminatory attitude
of the state institutions towards Chitralis. This is
an established fact that Chitralis have been
peaceful people and usually do not challenge to the
state’s obsession in terms of non participatory
development planning, poor implementation and
discriminatory attitude in resource allocation. Is
this attitude is a form of a punishment to Chitralis
for being loyal to the state and respecting
government institutions. Does the whole
responsibility of cohesiveness of this part within
country lie with the citizens only? Government
should learn from the prevailing geopolitical
situation where only Chitral district provides a
strategic strengthen to the government while other
adjacent districts are in political turmoil and
social confusion. Government should capitalize on
this strength rather than disappointing the faithful
citizens by its indifferent attitude towards the
development of this area. We are not so fortunate to
have a Prime Minister Foreign Minister belonging to
our area but we constitute a significant part in the
mosaic of a multi-ethnic country.
Sherzad Ali Hyder,
Ragodok Booni, Chitral.
04 June 09.
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