LANDI KOTAL, Jan 6: Governor Iftikhar Hussain Shah inaugurated a multi-million rupee Shalman water supply scheme here on Thursday.
The project would be completed in three years and would cost Rs38.8 million to provide 3.3 million gallons of drinking water to nearly 100,000 residents of Landi Kotal from River Kabul via Loe Shalman.
At present the residents are getting 250,000 gallons of water against daily requirement of 1,500,000 gallons. Speaking at a gathering of the tribal elders and nominated councillors of the area at Enzari Kandao, the governor said that the scheme was put to execution due to shortage of water.
He said the government would not allow anybody to give protection or patronise terrorists. He urged the tribesmen to surrender heavy weapons in order to cleanse the area of deadly arms.
He warned that punitive measures would be taken against those who did not comply with the government drive against cleaning the tribal area of arms. The governor, however, said that tribesmen would be allowed to keep light weapons for personal security.
He urged the tribesmen to educate their youth instead of giving kalashnikov assault rifles in their hands. MNA Noorul Haq Qadri and Senator Hafiz Abdul Malik thanked the governor for taking personal interest in making the water supply scheme a possibility despite financial constraints.
PROTEST: The Khujakhel tribesmen on Thursday blocked the Landi Kotal-Torkhum road and closed the Landi Kotal bazaar to register their protest against load shedding.
The protesters took out a procession and tried to reach the venue from where the governor was to leave for Peshawar. They wanted to apprise him about the problems being faced by the people of the area due to prolonged and unannounced load shedding. The protesters fired in the air and broke the windowpanes of a few shops in bazaar.
PTCL, WAPDA: Nominated councillors from Bara and Jamrud tehsils in Khyber Agency have taken note of load shedding and alleged inefficiency of the employees of the Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation Limited in the agency.
At a meeting held in Bara on Thursday, the councillors observed that telephone subscribers were faced with multiple problems due to inefficient and uncooperative attitude of the PTCL employees in the two tehsils.
The councillors told the meeting that they had received numerous complaints about the Wapda and PTCL linemen regarding their involvement in corruption. They resolved that they would take up the matter with the agency officials regarding load shedding and problems of the telephone subscribers in their official meeting on Jan 11 at the Khyber House.
The meeting also expressed its dismay over the arrest of one of their colleagues, Shaukat Afridi, and demanded of the Khyber Agency political administration to release him without any further delay. The meeting demanded of the authorities to ensure the protection of the members of the newly-formed council.