MANSEHRA: The Oghi tehsil council unanimously passed a resolution on Friday demanding of the provincial government to recover precious land in Darband from illegal occupants and use it for public welfare initiatives. The council met in Darband with convener Hafiz Younis in the chair.

Councillor Abdul Razzaq claimed that a commercial piece of government land valuing billions of rupees was illegally occupied by influential people in Darband.

He said the government should recover the occupied land and use for the initiatives of public interest.

Ask govt to spend Tarbela dam royalty on Darband uplift

Mr Razzaq said the government should launch a crackdown on land grabbers and give the tehsil municipal administration its land.

The council also passed a resolution demanding of the government to spend Tarbela dam royalty on the development of the residents of Darband.

“The families displaced due to the Tarbela hydropower project are settled in Darband and therefore, the government should spend the dam royalty on their development,” tehsil nazim Raja Bashir said.

NAZIM POLL: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz claims that it will retain the tehsil nazim’s office in Mansehra.

“We have 30 members in the 52-strong council to reinstall our government,” district president of the PML-N Zafar Mehmood told reporters here on Friday.

The nazim’s office has been lying vacant since Khurram Khan Swati of the PML-N resigned from it to contest the 2018 general elections.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has fixed Jan 21 for the in-house election for vacancies of nazims and naib nazims in tehsil and district councils.

Mr Mehmood said the PML-N councillors were united and would vote for the candidate named by leadership. Opposition leader in the council Saeed Khan of the PTI said his party had yet to call its parliamentary party meeting in the council.

“It is premature to say who is going to be elected nazim,” he said.

SCHOOL: MPA Nawabzada Fareed on Friday laid the foundation stone for the building of the primary school in Shergar area.

The school has been functioning in a rented building for many years.

Mr Fareed told reporters that the government had sanctioned Rs15 million for the school project.

He said the building would be in place soon. The lawmaker said Darband was among 22 areas of the province selected by the government for tourism and sports promotion.

“In the next summer season, water sports will begin in the Indus in Darband, which will create jobs for locals,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2019