CHITRAL: The Chitral district council on Tuesday passed a resolution, demanding of the government to consider only those organisations for consultancy of community-driven local development (CDLD) in the district which were non-controversial.

The resolution was moved by Maulana Inamul Haq of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F.

It pointed out that the consultancy service of the European Union-funded project given to Sarhad Rural Support Programme was terminated in February and fresh applications were invited from different organisations.

Some organisations having applied for the consultancy service are not acceptable to most people of Chitral, while a large number of villagers desisted from their rural development projects in the past due to one reason or the other. And if the consultancy service of the project is given to such organisations, then the villages in southern and central Chitral will not accept the project, the resolution stressed.

Bickering and internal strife will ensue if the controversial organisations are given the consultancy as a section of population in a village will opt to accept it while another will oppose it as has been witnessed during the past three decades, the council members stated while presenting the resolution.

CORRUPTION IN ROYALTY FUNDS: Residents of Gurin and Gurin Gol villages of Sheshi Koh valley have demanded of the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take notice of the allegedly large-scale corruption in the disbursement of forest royalty funds.

Addressing a press conference here the other day, Salahuddin, Hajeebur Rahman, Sher Faraz, Hafizuddin, Mir Faraz and others said that a large sum of Rs120 million was bungled by the timber mafia in collusion with the government departments under a fake joint forest management committee.

They said that the timber mafia was taking advantage of the poverty and ignorance of the people of Gorin and Gorin Gol villages to deprive them of their due share in the royalty.

The villagers said they had lost their agricultural land and homes to the flash floods that swept their villages in 2015, but they were yet to be rehabilitated.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2018