By: Gul Hamaad Farooqi.
CHITRAL: Chitral is beautiful district of KP where scenic and tourist area of Kailash Valley attract thousands of domestic and foreign tourist every year during religious festival of Kalash community. but the road to Kalash valley was very narrow and earthen. Hence National Highway Authority has started widening and construction of roads with a cost of about Rs 12 billion for these valleys last year. The road for the Kalash Valley is being started from Kailash’s first gateway Ayun Valley, but during its design the engineer ignored the already existing Link Road, and new road is being carrying from an inappropriate and unsafe place among the agriculture land.
The road is approximately two hundred feet high in the middle of the agricultural land where only dust and debris are putting and raised the road, which one hand it has affected agricultural land and irrigation drains for it and on the other hand it is very risky and dangerous in flood or earthquake. residents of Ayun living on both sides of the road are facing anxiety, while there is no protection wall on both sides of this artificial mountain and it can be collapsed in case of flood, earthquake or heavy rains.
CDM (Chitral Development Moment) civil society group working for betterment of roads on volunteer basis Major Retired Prince Siraj Mulk, Principal Retired Liaquat Ali, Project Manager Retired Inayatullah Asir, Chairmen of Ayun Valley, Mohammad Rehman and Wajihuddin visited these areas along with media team.
Local experts say that the NHA engineer may have made map setting in Islamabad and never visited this road because there is already existing road here which is also safe, but they carrying the road 200 feet high and build an artificial mountain in agricultural land and which can be destroyed in the event of floods and heavy rainfall.
They called on the Federal Minister and Secretary Communications and Chairman NHA to send the team again here to reviews design of this road to be carried it in a safe place. They have also prepared a map with the help of local experts and engineers in which the road absolutely passes straight.
CDM team also visited the road in Rumbur Valley where work has been suspended on the road. They revealed that contractor digging a long tunnel in the mountain and put a large quantity of ammunition in it and put the debris and boulders in river after blasting. There is debris and thousands of tonnes heavy of stones falling into the river Rambur. Now the artificial lake has become in the river and in the coming days when the snow melts due to the heat and falls into the river will be cause of tremendous flood.
Talking to the media team, locals said that the flow of water has been stopped due to the contractor’s big stone thrown into the Rambur canal and it presenting a look of the Attahabad Lake. Locals said that the lakes that have been made in this stream can also be dangerous for us because there is a lot of snowfall this year and when the snow is melting on mountains, it will destroyed our houses, gardens and fields. It can also be cause for destruction of the entire Ayun Valley in the form of a flood.
Locals also revealed that the contractor carries a heavy explosion by putting a lot of ammunition and urea fertilizer in the mountain, causing the entire mountain to fall down and this ammunition and chemical contaminating the water flowing to down area where People use it causing for local people to suffer from illnesses.
Locals demanded that heavy stones and debris should be removed immediately from Rubmro river so that the flow of water could not be interrupted or it could cause massive catastrophe or tremendous flood.
Locals also revealed that the forest department had built a road from Ayun to Bumborat fifty years ago, which used to bring Deodar wood if the NHA department restores the same road which can be recovered from a minor repair. On the one hand, work will not be suffered by traffic and People will travel on the above road, while on the other hand, domestic and foreign tourists also like the routes that have passed through the mountain where the whole valley is visible.
Our representative repeatedly tried to contact Chairman NHA Arshad Majeed Mohmand and project director Zaheeruddin and sent them written message to take their version in this regard, but they have not yet responded.
