January 8, 2002	Tuesday	Shawwal 23, 1422

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GILGIT, Jan 7: The Northern Areas Public Works Department (NAPWD) has failed to bring back the Chinese engineers for completing work on four-megawatt hydel power project in Guro Jaglote, sources told Dawn on Sunday.

The engineers had left for China immediately after the Sep 11 attack on Pentagon and the World Trade Center, owing to security reasons . The work on the power project remained suspended since then, the source added.

The scheme was started in 1998 and scheduled to be completed in October 2001 on turn-key basis.

Northern Areas Secretary Works Brig Masroor Abbasi, at high-level meeting, had assured the Northern Areas Legislative Council in November that the government was making arrangements to bring back these engineers by December 2001.

Sources at the NAPWD said that they had received no positive response from the Chinese authorities about sending the engineers to complete the project.

Cities of the Northern Areas were facing an acute shortage of electricity and situation became grave in winter, traders and shopkeepers in Gilgit said.

Northern Areas Chief Executive Abbas Sarfraz Khan, during his recent visit to the region, had also vowed to overcome the power crisis within a three years by installing a 18-megawatt hydel power project in Nalter, 30kms off Gilgit, at a cost of Rs1 billion.

But the residents in Gilgit and Baltistan argued that these assurances from the officials were not new.

DEMAND: People in Gilgit, Hunza, Nagar Ghizer demanded of the Northern Areas Settlements Department to immediately disburse compensation to flood victims.

They said that last-year floods had devastated a vast area of farm land, irrigation channels and fruit trees in various parts of the Northern Areas.

LAYOFF FLAYED: The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Pakistan have been condemned for terminating locals from services.

The victims said that both organiszations were implanting non-local surplus staff of Balochistan Conservation Strategy and National Rural Support Programme in Northern Areas.

They alleged that the recruitment was made through back doors and on personal considerations.

The local manpower had been ignored, though they were well informed about conservation and development strategies in the socio-cultural context of Gilgit and Baltistan.