By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL; Setting up a new mode of holding open forum for the public (khuli kutchery), the Chitral DC Irshad Sodhar has started holding them in mosques and jamaat khanaas in the length and breadth of the vast district spreading over an area of 15000 square kilometers.
Addressing the public gatherings at Jami Masjid and central Jamaat Khanaa (worship place of Ismaili community) in Booni town, the tehsil headquarters of Mastuj, he said that he was poised to make the district officers of all the government departments available to the public at their doorsteps.
He said that the worship places were attended by the people coming from the grass root level who formed his target group and had been marginalized since long by the political elites and the government officers alike.
Mr. Sodhar said that due to the enormity of the district, it was not possible for a common man to travel to the district headquarters and approach the relevant government officers for the redress of their collective as well as individual issues and keeping in view this fact, he had been directed by the chief secretary specifically to reach the masses in their villages.
In both the venues, the local people explained their complaints and raised the issues pertaining to the departments of public health engineering, irrigation, communication and works, food, tehsil municipal administration and agriculture.
Almost all the issues raised on the occasions were collective in nature which portrayed the inordinate delay in the completion of development projects being carried out by them while the TMA Mastuj was criticized for its utter failure is delivering municipal services.
Mr. Sodhar asked the officers to redress the pinpointed issues and complaints and intimate him within a month’s time as no leniency will be shown to them for their failure and said that he will see to each and every details of the issues and ensure their solution.
District police officer Syed Ali Akbar Shah, district officer finance Hayat shah, district education officer Ihsanul Haq, executive engineer of C&W Maqbool-e-Azam, district health officer Dr. Israrullah and district officers were in attendance.
After attending the forum, tehsil councilor from Booni, Sardar Hakim said that the open forum was a total departure from the past ones which were only formality and were not result oriented.
He said that the hundred percent attendance of the district officers of various departments indicated the earnestness of the practice while in the past, only a few officers of junior ranks attended.
