ABBOTTABAD: People affected by Abbottabad-Havelian road project here have threatened to block the main Karakoram Highway after Eid if their payment was not released according to the recommendations of 16-member committee.

They also warned to boycott the forthcoming general elections if their demand was not accepted within a week.

Work on Abbottabad-Havelian road, which is the main route of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, has been stopped due to protests and litigation of the case for the settlement of payments for the last three months.

One of the project officials requesting anonymity told this scribe that due to stoppage of work on the Abbottabad-Salhad section and in Muslimabad area the daily loss was reported at about Rs10 million a day as machinery and staff was idle.

Demand payment as per market rate of land, warn to block KKH after Eid

He said that the reported loss was higher than the payments sought for the land acquired for the road project.

A protest rally by the affected people held in front of the press club was led by Tariq Awan, Haroon, Hameedullah, Sardar Aurangzeb and Manshad Rustam.

Talking to mediapersons, they said that they had been demanding market price for their land for the last three months.

They said that the commissioner Hazara had given them assurance of payment on the recommendations of the 16-member committee, including officials of the land acquisition department, CPEC, district administration and land acquisition collector.

They said they were now being asked to get Rs85,000 per kanal despite the committee’s recommendation for payment according to the market rate, which was higher than that.

It was claimed that the contractor had also closed roads and now they could not go to their homes.

They alleged that the district administration had mismanaged their case, as in all other cases in the CPEC project the compensation was calculated according to the market value of the land.

They also threatened not to allow the NHA officials to visit the project area for any kind of developmental work.

They appealed to the federal government and chief justice of Pakistan to intervene and help ensure fair payment to the affected people of Abbottabad-Salhad section.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2018