PESHAWAR, Sept 6: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home and tribal affairs department on Thursday issued fresh directives to Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) to inform all UN organisations and national and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to provide details of their entire staff likely to be visiting various project sites in tribal areas as well settled districts of the province.
According to a press release, the decision is applicable to entire Malakand division, Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Hangu and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) including seven agencies and frontier regions.
It said that in future, No Objection Certificate (NOC) would be granted to the visiting staffers of those organisations if their names were included in the list provided to the department.
It is added that the list should include names of staffers, their national identity cards and passport numbers, permanent and temporary addresses, contact numbers and designation in the organisation.
Sources told Dawn that the department had so far not received any response from PDMA in connection with its earlier communication made few weeks ago owing to which it had to issue a fresh letter to the authority.
Last month, the home department had also banned travel of foreigners from Peshawar to southern districts and tribal and semi-tribal areas through Kohat tunnel.
It had announced a standard operating procedure (SOP) that stated that travel of foreigners from Peshawar to Kohat, Hangu, Karak and Bannu districts, and North and South Waziristan agencies through Kohat tunnel had been banned.
Similar restrictions were placed on all Pakistani staff members, working with any international or local NGO. However, they were advised to obtain prior permission from the department so that necessary NOC and proper security arrangements could be made for them.
Ban on travel through Kohat tunnel was in addition to the restrictions already imposed on foreign tourists, diplomats, foreign missions, expatriates and Pakistani staff members working with NGOs and INGOs that barred them from visiting 10 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Swat, Lower Dir, Upper Dir, Shangla, Buner, Malakand, Chitral, Hangu, Tank and Dera Ismail Khan.—Bureau Report