Body on New Balakot City project formed

MANSEHRA: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has constituted a committee to identify grey areas, which led to a prolonged delay in completion of New Balakot City housing project being developed for settlement of the 2005 earthquake survivors.

“This committee, constituted by commissioner Hazara, would pinpoint hurdles that caused delay in completion of this mega housing project being developed at around 15,000 kanals of land for settlement of the 2005 earthquake survivors,” Arif Baloch, the project director of Kaghan Development Authority, told reporters here on Saturday. The committee is comprised of director general provincial Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority Kaniz Sughra, Additional Deputy Commissioner Yasir Khan and Assistant Commissioner Revenue Department Assad Lodhi.

The project director said that a meeting, chaired by Commissioner Hazara Zaheerul Islam, also offered Kaghan Development Authority to take over New Balakot City housing project being developed with an estimated cost of Rs14 billion.

The ground-breaking of the New Balakot City housing project was performed by the then dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf in 2007 and it was scheduled to be completed in 2011. But due to delay, people are still living in makeshift shelters in Balakot.