BAJAUR: Residents of Dabar area of Mamond tehsil here on Sunday showed concern about poor condition of a road connecting their locality with rest of Bajaur district and threatened protests if the road wasn’t rehabilitated immediately.

Talking to Dawn, a group of residents said the three-kilometre Sewai-Dabar Road had long been in bad shape, causing great inconvenience to them. They said the road was constructed about 20 years ago, but no repairs were carried out.

“The road has developed big holes and cracks due to lack repairs,” Malik Mashoor Khan, a local resident, regretted.

He said the residents would launch a protest movement if work on the road’s reconstruction wasn’t started immediately.

The residents said situation became worse during rains, troubling commuters and transporters.

“During the last five years, the road condition has become worst, and whenever there is rain, transporters avoid plying their vehicles on the road,” Liaqat Khan, a trader in Inayat Kallay Bazaar, said.

The residents said Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MNA Gul Zafar Khan and Jamaat-i-Islami MPA Sirajuddin Khan had promised reconstruction of the road, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, a source in the local highways and roads department told Dawn that renovation of the road had been included in the second phase of the provincial government’s Accelerated Implementation Programme 2022-25.

However, the source didn’t tell when work on the road would begin.

POLIO DRIVE: Deputy commissioner Iftikhar Alam on Sunday directed the health department to keep in touch with the elders and religious leaders during the upcoming anti-polio campaign in order to ensure each child was vaccinated against the crippling disease.

He issued the directives while speaking at the opening ceremony of the five-day anti-polio campaign commencing on Monday (today).

The deputy commissioner said keeping close contact with all the stakeholders, especially elders and religious leaders, was vital to make the anti-polio drive a success.

Mr Alam said support of elders and religious figures was imperative to achieve the campaign’s target.

Officials informed the meeting that 243,940 children would be vaccinated against polio across the district.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2022