Reshun villagers begin building flood protection wall
CHITRAL: The residents of Upper Chitral’s Reshun village have started constructing a bulwark to save homes, agricultural lands and a segment of Chitral-Shandur Road from being washed away by Chitral River when it is in high floods during summer.
Amirullah Khan, a local resident, told Dawn that after having been disappointed by the authorities during the past eight years and the unfulfilled promises of the elected representatives, the villagers decided to start work on the bulwark on self-help basis.
He said women had also joined work on the site despite the fact that the member of the provincial assembly from the constituency was a woman, who returned on general seat and was elevated to the slot of deputy speaker of the assembly.
Amirullah said that the deputy speaker promised a number of times to start work on the construction of bulwark and salvage the remaining portion of the village, whose major part has been swept away by the river during the past eight years, but to no avail.
The resident said that protection of the Shandur Road was the responsibility of National Highway Authority, while the irrigation department of the province was entrusted with the responsibility of protecting agricultural land from floods, but both the departments failed miserably to shoulder their responsibility.
Shahzad Ahmed, a leader of the village, said that the flood had rendered hundreds of people homeless and nearly half-a-kilometre of the Shandur Road and hundreds of acres of fertile land was washed away during the last years, but the authorities were least bothered to take notice of it.
He said that the ideal time for working on bulwark was from October to March, and the villagers were racing against time as the level of water had already increased in the river making it almost impossible to carry on work on the site.
MPA Suraya Bibi could not be contacted on telephone to ascertain her version despite repeated calls on her cell phone, which she did not respond to.