KOHAT: Residents of villages along the Indus Highway held a jirga here on Sunday to protest the authorities’ failure to provide gas to them despite the fact that a pipeline carrying gas to the Kohat city and other towns passed through their lands.

Speaking on the occasion, Ayub Khan, who had gathered residents of Fazal Banda, Shaheedano Banda, Baqizai and Talab Banda, regretted that gas line passed through the villages to Bilitang, the city and Jarma, but their towns had been deprived of the facility for last 15 years.

Mr Iqbal, another elder, said the lawmakers came to the area only during elections to seek vote, and made false promises of gas supply. He regretted that the women cooked food and heated water in winter with firewood in this modern age. He said the people were forced to buy wood for Rs1,000 per 40 kilogrammes.

The jirga participants threatened to stop gas supply to the city and other areas if their demand was not met.

DELAY IN HOSPITAL PROJECT: District development advisory committee chairman Ziaullah Bangash said on Sunday that the contractor’s insistence that rates should be revised had caused suspension of reconstruction work on the Liaquat Memorial Hospital since 2019.

The project was launched in 2019 at a cost of Rs1.2 billion, but the contractor stopped work after raising pillars over non-payment of Rs20 million outstanding dues.

“The government had released Rs40 million to the communication and works department, which had asked the contractor to complete as much work as could be possible with that amount, but he refused and demanded cancellation of the contract,” said Mr Bangash.

He said the C&W department had been asked to issue a final notice to the contractor, adding if he did resume work, his contract should be cancelled and a new contract would be launched.

When contacted, contractor Ghulam Habib told Dawn that he spent Rs20 million from his own pocket on the foundational work in 2019. He said the government had promised to release Rs500 million in 2021, but to no effect.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2022