District uplift bodies: PHC moved against non-appointment of chairmen

PESHAWAR: Two members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Friday moved the Peshawar High Court (PHC) against the non-appointment of the chairmen of the District Development Advisory Committees (DDAC) of six districts in the province.

MPAs Sanaullah and Ahmad Kundi filed the petition through Sultan Mohammad Khan Advocate.The provincial government through the chief secretary, principal secretary to chief minister and secretary Local Government Department were made respondents in the petition.

The petitioners said that they were members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly belonging to the opposition. They said that the chief minister appointed the chairmen of the district development advisory committees for various districts in the province, but ignored Dera Ismail Khan, North Waziristan, Kohistan, Kurram, Upper Chitral and Upper Dir. They took the plea that uplift work was getting overlooked due to the non-appointment of the chairmen of the district development advisory committee in the abovementioned districts, which was a grave injustice to the local people. They said the uplift projects were executed in the districts under the watch of the district development advisory committees that also monitored the space of work on the development schemes. They maintained that the chief minister did not appoint the chairmen of the district advisory committees in those districts, where the candidates of the opposition parties were elected in the last general election. The chief minister, the lawmakers, said was supposed to perform his duty under the light of the provisions of the constitution. The petitioners said the MPAs in question had approached the chief minister and other authorities in this regard and had highlighted the issue at the floor of the provincial assembly but to no avail.