CHITRAL, July 21: The local partner of Chitral Area Development Project, funded by Norwegian government, has decided to quit the scheme over alleged violation of terms of reference (ToR) by its officials.

A spokesman of Chitral Community Development Network (CCDN) told Dawn here on Thursday that an extra-ordinary meeting of the board of directors of the organisation, held with its chairman Abdul Ghafar in the chair, expressed concerns over the approach adopted by the officials of Chitral Area Development Project (CIADP).

“Their approach is contrary to the concept of community participation, which has worked well in the district,” he said.

He said that CCDN, an umbrella organisation of local support groups in all union councils of the district, signed an agreement with CIADP, launched two years ago for the uplift of Chitral, for execution of the project.

He said that as per ToR, the execution of the development projects was entrusted to CCDN, which implemented them through local support organisations adopting the approach of community participation.

The spokesman said that after identification and prioritisation of projects in the target area funds were to be provided by CIADP in three phases while the quality and speed of work was jointly supervised by the two organisations.

He said that identification and prioritisation of development projects was the sole domain of CCDN but in most cases CIADP officials imposed their own choice on the community in disregard to their needs.

He said that local organisations enjoyed support of communities and had capacity to carry out development projects in all sectors.

He said that CCDN members criticised the autocratic attitude and unbecoming behaviour of CIADP officials.

He said that they decided against working with CIACP keeping in view their bitter experience of working relationship during the last two years.

The meeting decided that CCDN would not sign agreement with CIADP after completing the present development projects, he said.