TIMERGARA: The Lower Dir district councillors on Tuesday alleged massive irregularities in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Billion Tree Tsunami Afforestation Project and demanded a high level inquiry in this regard.

They expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of forest department during the council session held with its convener Abdul Rashid in the chair.

Taking part in the debate, ANP councillor Wasil Khan contested the forest department’s claim to have planted one billion trees across the province and added actually even half of it had not been planted.

He alleged that plants were distributed last year among favourite people.

Other councillors from both the treasury and opposition demanded of the government and NAB to initiate an inquiry against the irregularities. They suggested that plants should be distributed among farmers through the councillors this year.

Councillors Shad Nawaz, Fazal Qadir and others criticised Pesco for overbilling and excessive power outages.

The council through unanimous resolutions demanded exemplary punishment for the killers of Zainab of Kasur, Asma of Mardan and Naqeebullah Mehsud. It also demanded of the provincial government to lift ban on stone crushing plants in the district.

TRIBE’S MEETING: In order to give separate identity to Roodbari tribe in Lower Dir, a gathering of the community was held at Mian Kallay Jandool on Tuesday. A number of the tribe’s people from different parts of the district participated in the meeting.

Speaking on the occasion, Hakim Mohammad Ayub, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Laiqzada and Prof Noor Mohammad said that the people from Roodbari tribe were residing in various parts of the province without proper access to education and health care facilities. They said that they had no political aims, but wanted to secure rights of their people.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2018