TIMERGARA: Owners have started cultivating their lands, acquired by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government for constructing Talash-Kalpani bypass road about three years ago, because of non-payment of compensation.

The road was to ease the traffic flow to Upper Dir, Chitral, Bajaur and onward to Afghanistan. The project also remained an election slogan for politicians contesting the 2018 polls.

Representatives of landowners, including Haji Khaliq ur Rehman, Nimatullah and Fazal Habib, said their farmlands had been acquired by the government in 2015, but neither the road was built nor were they compensated.

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“Now we also demand compensation for the losses as we could not cultivate these lands in the last three years,” Nimatullah said.

Former provincial finance minister Muzaffar Said had in 2015 promised that the owners would be properly compensated.

The 10km-long and 45-foot wide road was approved by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led provincial government in 2015 initially with a total cost of Rs450 million, including Rs250 million for land acquisition and Rs230 million for its construction.

The project was formally tendered and inaugurated in May 2016 and, according to the PC- 1, the project was to be completed before 2018.

Later, due to change in design, the project was revised and included in the 2016-17 ADP. The Provincial Development Working Party again approved the project on Oct 18, last year.

Communication and works department’s sub-divisional officer Wazir Khan told Dawn that the cost of the project had now gone up to Rs683.495 million, including Rs332.58 million for payment of land compensation.

The official said Rs150 million had been transferred to the official account of the deputy commissioner, adding the project was not scrapped and the present government had also included it in the annual development plan.

When contacted, outgoing Lower Dir deputy commissioner Sarmad Saleem Akram told Dawn that the record of the bypass project had been seized by NAB.

He said NAB was investigating why the total cost of the project increased and why the work on it started if the landowners were not compensated.

PTI MPA Shafiullah Khan said the chief minister had promised to release adequate funds for the road.

“The road will also bypass five narrow and congested bazaars in Katkala, Nasafa, Kalpani, Ziarat and Shamshi Khan where traffic on the main GT Road remains choked and motorists bound for Timergara, Upper Dir, Chitral, Bajaur and Afghanistan face difficulties,” he explained.

The landowners had also filed a petition in a local court against the authorities of C&W, district administration and political figures in April 2018, demanding compensation as per revised PC-I of the project.

“So far we have held several meetings with the administration and politicians, but to no avail,” landowner Khaliqur Rehman lamented.

Sajjad Ali, a sub-engineer of communication and works, said one of the construction companies had been paid Rs7 million out of its outstanding amount of Rs12.5 million for earthwork on the third package of the project.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2018