CHITRAL: Development expert Dr Inayatullah Faizi has regretted the lack of development in Chitral and insisted the government didn’t give the due attention to the district’s development due to the ‘peaceful nature’ of the local residents.

“Chitral has been as backward as it was in early 1960s when its status of a state was changed to a district of Malakand division. The irony is that due to the peaceful nature of the natives, the government has always paid them less attention for development,” former project manager of an IUCN initiative in the region Dr Inayatullah Faizi told a function here.

The function was organised by the Chitral Press Club on to discuss the ‘burning issues of Chitral’.

Dr Inayatullah said a lack of visionary leadership had kept Chitral underdeveloped.

He said the health, education, communication, agriculture and irrigation were the sectors, where the district lagged far behind compared than the neighbouring areas of Upper Dir, which was one of the three princely states annexed with the province in 1969.

“Chitral stretches over 14,850 square kilometers and it is a pity that the length of the blacktopped road is just 185 kilometers but 100 per cent villages of upper Dir have been connected with the district headquarters through blacktopped roads,” he said.

The expert said the Baroghil valley of Chital got a jeepable dirt track only three years ago but scores of villages in the district had yet to have a similar facility.

“In this advanced age, villagers have to travel by foot and shift their patients and the injured to the hospitals on stretcher. They do not know about mechanised farming as no tractor, thresher and other mechanical implements in the absence of jeepable tracks and one can well imagine the pathetic condition of people having no access to road,” he said.

Dr Faizi said until two years ago, Chitral was the only district in the country, which remained cut off from the rest for more than five months of the extended winter season when the Lowari Pass received snow.

“Under those circumstances, the wretched people had to wait for six decades for the construction of Lowari tunnel,” he said. The expert regretted that in the health sector, the state of affairs was more dismal than others.

He said unfortunately, for a simple CT scan, the local residents had to travel to Peshawar spending more than Rs40,000.

“Most of the frequently needed diagnostic facilities are not available at the DHQ Hospital,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2018