Chitral --The Lowari tunnel which was open for traffic during winters has been closed from 6 April, on the pretext that work will resume inside the tunnel the next day, but so far no work whatsoever has resumed inside the tunnel. The executing agency NHA says that they were paying Rs 3 lacs daily to the Korean company for hampering their work by closing the tunnel for work for two hours in winters. What about now?. In the last several weeks of forced travel over the Lowari pass, the country has lost millions of rupees due to increased fuel usage by vehicles, not to talk of the waste of time and unnecessary wear and tear of vehicles and (the lesser commodity) the human beings. A representative of the Korean company confirmed to this scribe that work has not resumed due to payment problems. If such be the case there is no reason that the tunnel be kept closed for traffic. After all tunnel is there to facilitate traffic which it was doing during winters. Keeping the hole closed and condemning travelers to circumnavigate it, climbing to 10500 ft (for no rhyme or reason), speaks volumes about the negative attitude of the NHA authorities towards peoples problems, and lack of planning and accountability in the NHA. --(GH Farooqi)