“I have not forgotten for a day that our own government cheated us,” says Junaid Qasim, who was tehsil nazim of Balakot in 2005.

His anger and betrayal stems from the government’s promise to build a new, well-planned Balakot and then failing to do so – ten years after an earthquake destroyed the city.

The 2005 earthquake razed Balakot city. Shortly after the earthquake, when reconstruction began, it was decided that Balakot would be rebuilt elsewhere, as the original city was located on a fault line.

“The location was declared a Red Zone and no construction was allowed here, even makeshift shelters were established as temporary arrangements,” he said.

“As a result, ten years on, we are IDPs living in temporary homes.”

He was referring to the prefabricated houses that dot the landscape. Made of metallic sheets and plywood, these lightweight houses are temporary bungalows. It is not possible to construct another storey over the ground floor.

After the earthquake, all construction was halted – and still is a decade after the tragedy – and everyone was compelled to live in these prefabricated buildings. Even government offices or departments such as the post office, the girls’ school and a small hospital continue to operate in similar, prefabricated buildings.

Reconstruction was to take place in the new city in a new location. Launched in 2007 at Bakrial, the new Balakot was to be 20 kms south of old Balakot City and 15 kms north of Mansehra. Today, it is an isolated area, characterised by a few villages, a large forest and grazing land.

The total budget for establishing New Balakot city was estimated at Rs14 billion and some Rs1.2 billion have been paid to the land owners of the Bakhrial area, though the possession of the land is yet to be obtained.

According to the plan, around 11,436 acres was to be developed – so far only 14 percent of this has been developed.

“A large tract of land owned by the forest department is to be used for the city and this parcel too has not been handed over to ERRA,” said Master Maroof, a government school teacher and prominent activist from the area. He alleges that “The federal government has never even tried to press the KP government to hand over the land.”

According to the original plans, the new Balakot city was scheduled to be completed by 2010; no one even blinked when the deadline passed.

In the process, the destroyed infrastructure was never reconstructed. For example, two bridges over river Kunhar, connecting the people of Balakot living on both sides, have still not been rebuilt.

Similarly, the local roads connecting the villages and adjoining areas with Balakot have also not been repaired.

Worse still is the fact that no one is willing to take responsibility for the delay. The provincial government, the federal government and the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) all point fingers at each other, absolving themselves.

Imran Khan visited Balakot in March 2015, accompanied by Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak, Senator Azam Swati and others. Khan promised that land acquisition for the new Balakot city would be completed in three weeks. But this deadline has also passed.

The KP minister for Local Government and Rural Development Inayatullah Khan visited the area in April 2015 and promised to take up the issue with the chief minister and the federal government, after blaming the local elected representatives for not pushing the matter.

On the other hand, the local MNA and Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Mohammad Yousuf blames the provincial government, arguing that the acquisition of and the transfer of forest land was “a provincial subject”.

Residents, meanwhile, continue to struggle on, not sure of the future or the present.

The temporary settlements are not enough to cater to the residents’ needs, as many families have grown in the past decade and can no longer live comfortably in the small prefabricated houses.

“Besides, these units catch fire easily, so cooking is a challenge in the winters,” said Zainab Bibi, a resident, who teaches at a local private school.

To cope with this situation, some residents have established a small room with a chimney at a short distance from the main units for cooking. However, this makes life more difficult for the women who get exposed to the rain or snowfall as they go back and forth between the home and the kitchen.

No wonder then that the residents of Balakot speak of betrayal and anger. The sense of injustice has simply grown once it became obvious that the government seems to have abandoned the plans to build a new city.

“Now the officials openly encourage us to start rebuilding at the old site, but it will cost us all our savings to construct a new house,” said a shopkeeper in the newly erected market of Balakot. This new market, made entirely of concrete, was built earlier in 2015, near the magistrate office and lower courts.

But despite the resentment, the residents have taken advantage of the change of heart – construction is taking place.

A large number of factories making cemented blocks are proliferating. Many freshly constructed houses or under construction structures are visible along the road and on the slopes.

However, this activity is still the domain of the well off. The majority of residents live in makeshift, prefabricated homes.

And the anger continues.

Advocate Munir Lughmani, who serves as the convener of the Balakot Basao Tehreek and is a PMLN member of the newly elected council of Mansehra district, criticised the bureaucrats and politicians.

“We had our tehsil headquarter hospital destroyed in the natural disaster but the political disaster has prevented it from being rebuilt,” he told Dawn.

He said that a piece of land close to the original site of the hospital and outside the Red Zone was the property of Communications & Works department (KP); the health department wanted to build the hospital on this land.

“When Muammar Qaddafi offered to build the hospital, C&W refused to part with the land; now that Qaddafi is no longer in this world, the land has finally been transferred to the health department in August 2015,” Mr Lughmani said.

“This attitude of the rulers is one reason why we want a province for Hazara,” said Ahmed Hassan, a veteran journalist from the area.

He narrates the story of a meeting of local residents with the ERRA chairman some three years; apparently, the chairman said that provincial government and the bureaucracy were not interested in Balakot. “He told us that if Mardan had been destroyed in the earthquake, the new city would have been visible by now.”

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2015

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