Shortage of technical staff mars uplift in Chitral

Report Zahiruddin

CHITRAL: The shortage of technical staff in the works and services department has affected pace of development activities and projects worth millions of rupees have been put at stake, sources said on Friday.
The sources said that the post of deputy director of water and sanitation was lying vacant for the last six months while three posts of assistant directors and seven sub-engineers were vacant for the last one year.
The apathy of the government could be gauged from the fact that the department was being run by only a single sub-engineer for execution of two projects worth Rs100 million at Drosh and Booni, the sources maintained.
There were scores of other small and medium sized water supply and sanitation projects work on which had either been stopped or being carried out using substandard material due to the absence of competent engineering staff, the sources further said.
They said that due to shortage of staff projects of roads and buildings were being affected adversely, as only three sub-engineers were presently available to cover the whole district, adding the district was also going to be deprived of its due share in the annual development programme (ADP) for the forthcoming fiscal year.
They said that many projects of vital importance had either been dropped or could not be completed within the stipulated time.
They said that detailed estimates of different schemes were to be submitted to the provincial government to be included in the draft proposals of the ADP but the capacity of the works and services department was not that much to prepare the documents by December this year.
When contacted, district nazim Maghfirat Shah said he had been trying his best to fill the posts but without success.
He alleged that the provincial government was turning a deaf ear to his requests as the departments provided basic and primary infrastructure facilities to the people and any inertia at the government level could not be afforded.
Mr Shah said that area-wise Chitral was the biggest district in the province and thus needed more manpower to timely complete the development projects and repair and maintain the existing road and water supply infrastructure.
He said that the nazims of various union councils had even warned to lock out the district offices of the departments if the vacant posts were not filled within two weeks.