KOHAT: The listeners of Radio Kohat FM 101.4 have demanded restoration of the transmissions suspended a month ago.

Mr Ibrar, an electrician in Bannu Bazaar, said he enjoyed FM radio programmes broadcast in local dialects.

A housewife in Nizamuddin Town said she kept the transmissions on the whole day while cooking, washing and doing other home chores. She said people had been deprived of their favourite programmes due to suspension of radio transmissions.

An official told Dawn on contact that equipment of the radio station, including transformer, LED, receiver, console (mixer), mikes and transmitter, were burnt when electricity voltage increased abruptly to 440 volts on May 9. He said the FM station covered the whole of Kohat division up to Mianwali district of Punjab.

He said they got all other items repaired except the Italy-made transmitter, which was sent to the headquarters. He said module of the transmitter had also been damaged, which could only be imported. He said new transmitters were also available with the headquarters, but no decision had yet been made to provide one of them to the FM radio in Kohat.

GOVERNORSHIP: Senior Awami National Party leader and former president of Pakhtun Students Federation Shahabullah Shah has said his party has been refusing the repeated offers of the governorship of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Talking to reporters on Saturday, he said PTI MNA Shehryar Afridi, MPA Ziaullah Bangash and Senator Shibli Faraz had failed to carry out any uplift works in Kohat.

About the recent delimitations, he said Darra Adamkhel tribal subdivision of Kohat should be retained as a separate constituency instead of merging it with some parts of Gumbat tehsil.

He recalled that former chief minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti had announced a women university for Kohat in 2010 and also earmarked a place for starting makeshift classes, but Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government had shelved the plan.

He regretted that former chief minister Pervez Khattak had inaugurated reconstruction of the Liaquat Memorial Hospital in 2018 at a cost of Rs1.20 billion, but work on it had long been suspended.

Similarly, he lamented that KDA hospital was without necessary equipment and critical patients were referred to Peshawar.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2022