By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: The residents of Mulkhow tehsil have demanded of the government to take earnestly the host of problems faced by the area which badly lacked all amenities of life including drinking water while the drought of the year has crippled their economy based on agriculture.
Highlighting the issues of the area in the ‘Press Forum’ in Warijun held by Chitral Press Club, the elected representatives of local bodies and elites from the area complained that the area comprising more than 10 thousand households was heading towards famine as they lost their crops of wheat, rice, pulses, vegetables and fruits to the drought.
They said that the farmers also sold their cattle due to the drought which formed one of the major sources of their income as the Chitrali patti made of sheep wool was a specialty of the area.
“Mulkhow has been upgraded to tehsil status a year ago but without any facilities as no assistant commissioner has so far been posted here while the tehsil municipal administration is also yet to be established and functionalized.
Although electricity is being supplied from the Golen Gol hydro power station in sufficient quantity, but the Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organization (PEDO) has failed its distribution to the households regularly and efficiently as it has field staff posted in Mulkhow.
The transformers and high tension cables are outdated and needed to be replaced which cannot withstand the load of electricity due to which breakdown has become the order of the day.
The local rural health centre is without doctor although the hospital is well equipped with x-ray machine and diagnostic laboratory and electricity of required voltage available, but these have not been activated and the patients are constrained to travel to the district headquarters hospital even for minor illness”, they said.
In the sector of education, they said that the government girls higher secondary school is being run without principal and ten posts of subject specialists are vacant since its inception two years ago.
They expressed their disappointment over the inordinate delay in the completion of RCC bridge at Muzhgole by C&W department which connected the Mulkhow tehsil with the rest of the district and said that the delay is caused due to the paucity of funds while for the current financial year, only one million rupees had been allocated which was a joke with the people of this backward area.
They said that the chief minister Mehmud Khan had inaugurated the ground breaking of the bridge two years ago as provincial minister and they wanted it to his notice that only 20 percent of the work has been accomplished during this time.
Those who spoke on the occasion included member of zilla council from Mulkhow, Maulana Javed Hussain and the elites of the area Mukaram Shah, Hameed Jalal, Haji Hussain Shah, Fariduddin and others.
