CHINIOT: A dilapidated road is causing major problems for commuters of several villages and even forcing students to drop out from schools.

The Bhowna-Aminpur road not only connects two major towns of Chiniot, but also Bhowana Town with Faisalabad via Aminpur Town. The road was last repaired in 2000 but started to fall apart soon after. By 2002, major portions of the road were damaged and it had turned into heaps of rocks.

This road not only connects hundreds of villages with tehsil headquarters of Bhowana, but also serves as a path for thousands of students going to schools situated on this road. The Govt Girls High School Chak 184 and Boys High School Chak 237-JB and a number of primary and elementary schools are situated on this road.

The people of these villages had been suffering for 15 years as three successive political regimes could not solve their problem. The area comes under NA-86 and PP-74, but neither the MNA nor the MPA bothered to visit this area after elections, commented Ghulam Ali, an elderly farmer of Chak 237-JB.

Due to the dilapidated condition of the road, public transport service between the two cities has also been discontinued. Transport operators now prefer the Bhowana-Jamiabad-Aminpur route that has a much better road.

High schools were situated 10 to 15 kilometres from smaller villages and public transport was the only way for students to get to these schools, so suspension of transport had caused a major blow to children’s studies. Boys could be seen early morning standing on roadsides requesting motorists for lifts to schools, while girls were forced to discontinue studies due to lack of transport.

A local education official requesting anonymity confirmed that girls’ enrolment was facing challenges as dropout was feared due to lack of transport. However, the department was trying to convince parents to send their children to school anyway, he added.

Punjab Highways Sub-Divisional Officer (Maintenance and Repairs) Manzoor Ahmad Noon told Dawn that the department was focusing on maintenance and repair of the provincial main highway which connected Chiniot to big cities.

He admitted the 24km road was in a shambles and its 4km portion was entirely unusable, but claimed they had sought Rs30 million from the Punjab government for its repair. Once the funds were approved, the road would be repaired, he added.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2017