HARIPUR: The parents of students of Government Girls Degree College, Pharhala, have complained about poor transport facilities for their daughters, which has become a source of financial loss and insecurity for them.

Talking to mediapersons, Nazir, Shakoor and Wazir Khan, residents of Kaag village and surrounding localities, said that their daughters were the students of the degree college, Pharhala, and travel six to 12 kilometres by private transport for reaching their college as its administration had virtually no transport service for providing pick and drop facility to them.

They said that the security of girls was being compromised while they had been paying heavy fares of private transport. They said that the college administration did not accept their requests, claiming that it was short of buses.

When contacted, the college administration said that there were two buses that provided pick and drop service to all the students a few months ago, but one of the two buses had been given to Govt Girls Degree College, Sera-e-Saleh. Official sources said that there was only one bus for 500 girl students that could not cater to their needs and as a result the students of Beer, Kaag, Jati Pind and other areas come to the college using private transport. They have demanded of the provincial government to provide transport facilities to the girl students.

WATER CHANNEL IN DISREPAIR: Farmers belonging to different villages of Kot Najibullah union council have expressed concern over lack of repair of D-4 water channel of Khanpur Dam and termed it a big source of irrigation water loss. Speaking to mediapersons, Abdul Rehman, a local farmer, said that the D-4 water channel was built at the time of construction of Khanpur Dam in early 80s and it used to provide irrigation water to over a dozen villages of Kot Najibullah union council.

He said that due to lack of de-siltation and repair the channel had been chocked at a number of points. As a result, a big quantity of water was being wasted daily and the crop that needed irrigation water was affected badly. He said that standing crops were exposed to water shortage, which would ultimately cause financial loss to the farmers. He demanded of the provincial government to order desiltation and maintenance of the water channel.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2018