MANSEHRA: Residents of Torghar district on Thursday took to the streets to press authorities for setting up a higher secondary school and a degree college in the region.

“We don’t have educational and health facilities and infrastructure even 13 years after getting the status of a settled district,” Judbah tehsil council chairman Mohammad Khan told the protesters.

Holding banners and placards and shouting slogans, the protesters marched on the Thakot-Darband Road before gathering outside the deputy commissioner’s offices.

Mr Khan said the government had declared Torghar a district in 2011 through a presidential order, but the residents continued to be without basic facilities.

He complained that the district’s health department and courts operated from the Oghi area in Mansehra district.

“These offices should be relocated to Judbah, our district headquarters,” he said.

General secretary of the Awami National Party Asghar Khan told protesters that protests in Judbah would continue until authorities provided residents with basic facilities of life.

“We want an early blacktopping of the Judbah-Darband Road and Judbah-Thakot Road, whose dilapidated condition troubles travellers,” he said.

Mr Khan warned that protests would be staged in other parts of the district as well.

JI district emir Farmanullah Khan and chairmen of the Locals’ Action Committee Abdul Qadir Basikhel also addressed the gathering and urged the federal government to execute all the development projects announced by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during his visit to the district during his previous term in office.

SURVEY: The district administration on Thursday began a survey to assess the damage caused by the recent downpour and hailstorms to wheat crops and vegetables.

Deputy commissioner Adnan Khan recently ordered additional deputy commissioner (relief) Hajrah Samee to conduct the survey following a delegation of the Chairmen Local Governments Ittehad met with him and demanded compensation for growers whose crops and vegetables were damaged by the recent heavy downpour and hailstorms in parts of the district.

Ms Samee met the assistant commissioner and deputy director (agriculture) before launching a damage assessment survey in Safada, Huddobandi, Bara Mula, Kua Mera, Baguai Dehri, Chari Lundi, Muri, Safada (Urban), Cham and Bela areas, where rains and hailstorms destroyed standing wheat crops and vegetables widely.

General secretary of the Chairmen Local Government Ittehad Basharat Ali Swati, who led village and neighbourhood council chairmen in their meeting with the deputy commissioner, said they formally raised the issue.

He said authorities should declare those areas calamity-hit ones and compensate the affected wheat and vegetable growers for their relief.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2024