PESHAWAR: Praising the provincial government for giving the tehsil’s status to Drosh area of Chitral, MPA of the ruling PTI Bibi Fauzia on Monday claimed that upper parts of the district would soon made a district to benefit the local people, mostly living in remote areas.

The lawmaker told a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club that the division of Chitral into two districts was a longstanding demand of the local residents but the successive governments didn’t paid heed to it. She said the PTI government was set to announce the district’s status for upper Chitral.

“PTI chairman Imran Khan along with Chief Minister Pervez Khattak will visit Chitral in the first week of November and will formally declare upper Chitral as a district,” she said.

Accompanied by PTI leaders from Chitral Abdul Latif, Razitubillah, Rahmat Ghazi, Sajjad Ahmad, Haji Mukhtar and Mohammad Hussain Shah, the lawmaker lauded the provincial government for declaring Drosh a tehsil of Chitral and said she was hopeful that the move would help mitigate the problems of local residents. She said the government had initiated record development projects in Chitral.

“Work on Lawi hydropower project in Chitral having the capacity to generate 69 megawatts electricity will fulfil the province’s growing energy needs. Similarly, the successful execution of 600 megawatts hydel power projects will help Chitral become financially self-sufficient and more developed than many of other areas of the province,” she said.

Ms Fauzia said the government had allocated Rs980 million for the restoration of Reshun hydropower project, whose infrastructure was washed away by the flash floods.

She said the allocation of Rs1 billion funds had been announced for the reconstruction of infrastructure damaged by floods in Chitral, while work on 11 bridges had been initiated. The lawmaker said the new educational institutions had been established to improve the current literary rate in Chitral.

She said more than 1,000 teachers had so far been recruited through the National Testing Service system to overcome the shortage of teaching staff members in government schools of the district.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2017