By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: The newly created district of upper Chitral has yet to get the district offices of most of the department including the district headquarters (DHQ) hospital due to which a large number of issues are cropping up for the residents.
The former member of zilla council Maulana Javed Hussain said that the problems of the area are multiplying day by day due to the administrative vacuum in different departments of the governments which have no offices here.
He said that the departments of health, public health engineering, agriculture, irrigation, food, planning and finance, forest, wild life, fisheries, livestock, local government and rural development, social welfare, sports and technical education are yet to be established here.
Mr. Hussain said that although, the district has quite recently received district officers of education (both male and female) and communication and works departments but their output is quite tangible in a short span of time notwithstanding the fact that the departments have low strength of staff and infrastructure.
“The residents approach the office in the district headquarters situated in Booni to discuss the issues with the officers and get them redressed”, he said that the people now hesitated to go to the Lower Chitral where they are that they told to approach their own district’s offices”, he said.
The president of the PPP’s Upper Chitral chapter, Amirullah Khan said that the need of the establishment of DHQ hospital was badly needed in Chitral as presently most of the patients and injured persons are referred to Lower Chitral’s DHQ hospital for treatment and complications arise if it is medico-legal case.
He lamented that the present tehsil headquarters hospital in Booni was in a deplorable condition with regard to both infrastructure of building and the availability of doctors and diagnostic facilities and ambulance service.
He also lamented the apathetic attitude of the provincial government towards the upper Chitral district as no substantial amount of funds had been earmarked in the budget of current fiscal year for the establishment of district headquarters offices and provision of facilities.
