MANSEHRA: The Secretariat of the Provincial Ombudsman has planned to open regional offices in Hazara, Malakand and Dera Ismail Khan to ensure the people’s easy access to justice by addressing their complaints against government departments locally, said provincial ombudsman Aqal Badshah Khattak on Wednesday.

“We are going to establish regional ombudsman offices in Abbottabad, Mingora and Dera Ismail Khan for providing complainants with speedy justice free of charge,” Mr Khattak told a news conference here on Wednesday after completing two days visit to Hazara division.

Accompanied by deputy director Muzzamil Jamil and assistant director Hanif Khan, the ombudsman said sufficient financial resources were available to establish regional offices.

Ombudsman promises speedy action on complaints against depts

He said every regional office would soon get staff and a BPS-20 officer to hear complaints before deciding them within the prescribed period.

Mr Khattak said his secretariat received 841 complaints and decided 595 of them in the last eight months.

“We rejected 200 complaints for being out of the ambit of the Provincial Ombudsman Act, 2010,” he said.

The ombudsman said his visit to Hazara region was part of efforts to educate people about the resolution of grievances and complaints against departments.

CYLINDER BLAST: Four members of a family suffered critical injuries in the explosion of a gas cylinder in Buttdarian area here on Wednesday.

The incident occurred as a woman was making food in her house for guests coming in to attend her sister’s wedding ceremony.

The injuredwere shifted to the King Abdullah Teaching Hospital, where the condition of them all was stated to be out of danger.

The explosion damaged household goods, including furniture.

COMPENSATION ISSUE: The deadlock continued for the second day on Wednesday over compensation and other facilities for the families of eight labourers killed in an Upper Kohistan landslide.”The jirga meeting ended inconclusively as the administration wants to pay Rs900,000 to every bereaved family but the families demand a lot more that that,” district police officer Abdul Saboor Khan told reporters.

The protesters, who had blocked the Karakoram Highway following the killing of eight workers of Dasu hydropower project in a landslide, continued protest until Tuesday night.

At the end of the jirga attended by the deputy commissioner of Upper Kohistan, the general manager of the Dasu hydropower project and DPO, Kohsitan’s elders announced suspension of work on Dasu dam.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2019