CHITRAL: The absence of material testing laboratory in Chitral is adversely affecting the quality of development projects executed by government in different sectors with the result that the decay of infrastructure starts before it completes its first 10 years, according to sources.

They said that testing the strength of material was inevitable in construction industry to ensure quality of roads, buildings, irrigation channels and drinking water supply schemes as well as transmission lines of electricity.

Sajjad Ahmed Khan, chairman of Jughoor village council, said that quality of concrete, asphalt, water pipes, iron sheets, cement, electric poles and grids needed to be tested while the testing of local material including sand, stone, gravel and wood could be carried out without the laboratory.

Village council chairman says infrastructures start crumbling within months of completion

He said that departments of communication and works, irrigation, public health engineering, tehsil municipal administration, local government and National Highway Authority completed projects worth billions of rupees in Chitral every year but the quality was always a question as the infrastructures started crumbling within a month of their completion.

“The absence of laboratory makes the executing agencies and contractors free from being caught for poor quality of material and even an honest site engineer cannot differentiate between the genuine and dubious material in such circumstances while the departments have no provision of sending the samples of material to Peshawar for testing,” said Mr Khan.

He said that it was equally disgusting that even non-governmental organisations spending millions of rupees every year did not have such facility and their projects faced the same fate like that of government departments.

A senior engineer of a government department, requesting anonymity, said that the laboratory was not that costly as a sum of Rs8 million to Rs10 millions would be sufficient to fully equip it with the necessary gadgets and instruments.

He said that the laboratory would be a source of income generation as testing fee would be charged there while the rate could be doubled for NGOs.

STRIKE: The hunger strike of the residents of Reshun village in Upper Chitral against Peshawar Electric Supply Company entered its second day here on Monday.

The chairman of Action Committee, Amirullah Khan, told Dawn that four persons were braving the cold weather at the hunger strike camp and two of them were octogenarians but they were determined to go to any extent for the acceptance of their demand.

He said that people from different areas of both Lower and Upper Chitral visited the camp to expressed solidarity with them.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2024