UPPER DIR: Owing to a ban on timber lifting, thousands of feet of fallen wood of precious deodar tree in various forests of Kohistan valley is getting spoiled, incurring huge financial losses on the government and the forest owners.

Talking to Dawn, local residents complained that a large number of precious deodar trees had fallen due to wind and other natural disasters like earthquakes and soil erosion due to heavy rains. They said the local people were not allowed to make use of the fallen timber due to a ban on it by the forest department. While on the other hand, they alleged that the department had allowed timber mafia to fell trees at will.

They said the forest department had failed to deploy its employees in those forests where illegal cutting was taking place.

The people pointed out that the government suffered a loss of Rs3 to Rs5 billion per year due to loss of timber. They demanded of the forest department to permit them to take the fallen timber to the market, or the government should itself sell the precious wood and spend the revenue on development of the region.

REGULARISATION DEMANDED: Hundreds of ad hoc teachers of the teaching assistant cadre of various colleges across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have demanded of the provincial government to convert their cadre into lecturer cadre and regularise them.

The demand was made at a meeting of the district coordinators of the Teaching Assistant Survival Society (TASS) for Upper and Lower Dir.

The participants said the provincial government had introduced the cadre some two years ago to end shortage of lecturers in government colleges.

Up to 900 teaching assistants were recruited in colleges across the province on ad hoc basis, they said, adding their recruitment had been made through Education Testing and Evolution Agency (ETEA), which was required for recruitment of regular lecturers.

They said they had been performing their duty honestly, adding there were more than 60 per cent of PhDs and MPhil scholars working as teaching assistants.

They said the higher education department had also not fixed a proper pay scale for them, adding the additional director of the department had also admitted during his visits to various colleges that after the recruitment of teaching assistants learning environment had improved at colleges.

The organisation’s office-bearers said their initial contract was going to lapse in November, this year, adding Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, provincial minister for higher education Mushtaq Ghani, assembly speaker Asad Qaisar and finance minister Muzaffar Said had assured them of converting their services to lecturer cadre, and of regularising them. However, they said the promises were yet to be met. They said they were not sure about their secure future in those circumstances.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2016