October 18, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 5, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 17: An enquiry has been demanded into the undue delay in construction of a vital bridge connecting the Yarkhun and Boroghil valleys of Chitral with other parts of the district that was washed away over a year ago.

One person was killed while crossing the river recently and thousands of inhabitants of the area, including schoolchildren, are daily risking their lives to cross the river on a dangerously active pedestrian bridge.

The pedestrian bridge has become the only source of communication reminiscing the old days when a bridge built of willow branches was the only link to the over 150-km-long Yarkhun-Boroghil valleys stretching up to the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan in the north.

The local residents told Dawn that the provincial government had ignored the sufferings of over 30,000 people after the collapse of the bridge near the Brep village in August 2006, while the district government says it has no funds to undertake the project.

The jeepable bridge over the Yarkhun river was built in 1988 which made the area accessible through an all-weather route for the first time.

However, after the destruction of the bridge, the demand of the stranded people to rebuild it has been ignored on one pretext or the other by the provincial government.

A crisis of sorts has gripped the valley already devoid of basic necessities of life including primary health care facilities.

The worst sufferers are schoolchildren especially girls who have to cross the river to attend schools in the Brep village.

The area is also facing shortage of daily-use items, especially wheat, cooking oil/ghee and life-saving drugs. The situation has given a free hand to profiteers and hoarders who have started taking advantage of the crisis. A few taxi jeeps stranded in the valley are openly looting passengers, and charging over Rs100 per km.

The people said the MMA public representatives kept them on false promises of getting funds released from the provincial government to rebuild the bridge. They said development funds allocated to the district by the federal and provincial governments were utilised in areas where the MMA had its vote bank, while their pressing problems remained unresolved.