PESHAWAR, Dec 15: The health department is yet to hand over new ambulances to four districts of the province, official sources said.

The governor’s secretariat, has also through a letter asked health department to explain as to why the vehicles were not handed over to the districts to the day.

The Asian Development Bank had provided loan for purchasing the ambulances under the women health project (WHP) to arrest the maternal mortality rate in the backward districts of the province.

The sources said that a total of 11 ambulances had been purchased at the cost of Rs20 million. According to the PC 1, they were supposed to be allotted to 11 health care units in Dera Ismail Khan, Swat, Swabi and Kohat.

Lately, Hangu and Shangla districts were included in the PC 1, and one ambulance each was allotted to the health facilities there despite the fact that the project had been launched for the four districts.

Following the installation of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government, the higher authorities in the health department made changes in the PC 1 of the project and allotted one ambulance each to Buner and Swat and slashed the quota of Shangla and Hangu.

The decision infuriated the MPAs from Shangla and Hangu and they demanded that their districts should be given the ambulances.

It caused confusion among the project managers and delayed the distribution of the vehicles for the last six months.

According to the officials, a few weeks back a letter was issued from the governor’s secretariat to the health department asking for the reasons which had delayed the distribution of the ambulances for the last several months.

Following the letter from the governor’s secretariat, the health department began the distribution of the vehicles to the health facilities. Five ambulances had been distributed, whereas the rest were yet to be handed over to the health facilities.

Women health project Director Dr Mohammad Khursheed told Dawn that the health department had clarified the position to the governor’s secretariat.

He said that as per PC 1 of the project, they had started the distribution of the vehicles and rest would be handed over to the concerned medical institutions soon.