Landowners seek payment, employment for locals

Dasu Hydropower Project

MANSEHRA: The affectees of Dasu hydropower project in Kohistan on Monday staged a protest and urged the government to make payment for their land according to the market price.

Speaking at a protest rally at Barshin area of Kohistan district, Abdul Jabbar, the secretary general of Action Committee for rights of Dasu dam affectees, said that Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had announced that land being acquired for Dasu dam would be purchased at market price.

However, he said that work on various supplementary schemes of the project had been started without payments of affected landowners. The protesters from Dasu, Kandia and Sazeen areas came to Barshin at Karakoram Highway (KKH) and staged sit-in for several hours.

The protesters also forcibly stopped survey of the dam, which was in progress at the time. “We would not allow the construction of bypass road to link site of dam with KKH as federal government has not paid a single penny to the landowners,” Abdul Jabbar said.

He added the government had started construction of colonies, roads, camps for engineers and workers. He said that government should first fix price of the land being acquired for the dam. “We are not against dams and other developmental projects being executed in our area but we want our rights to be secured first,” he said.He said the government was also violating agreement inked with people of the area that local workforce would be inducted in the project, but they were ignored.

Another member of the Action Committee, Gulab Khan, said that Wapda, which is the executing authority of the dam, had also accepted their demands regarding payment according market value for their land and giving employment to local people but it too had done nothing in practical . “We would continue our protest until our demands are met and government should stop work on the schemes related to dam until prices issue is settled,” said another protesters.The protesters later dispersed peacefully but warned of more protests if demands were not met.