CM aide inaugurates road in Mansehra

MANSEHRA: Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Population Ahmad Hussain Shah inaugurated the Garlat-Jabbah Bangian Road, linking dozens of villages with Balakot town on Tuesday.

“Our government has been working to develop villages and remote parts of the province to restrict migration of people to mega towns and cities,” Ahmad Hussain Shah told the inaugural ceremony held in Garlat.

The Garlat-Jabbah Bangian road was destroyed in the 2005 earthquake and none of the successive governments earmarked funds for its rehabilitation despite protests by locals.

The special assistant said that Chief Minister Mahmood Khan was taking keen interest in addressing the New Balakot City Housing Project issue.

“We have constituted a 12-member committee, which would finalise modalities for the early allotment of plots to families still living in the prefabricated houses in the red zone,” he added.

He said that both federal and provincial governments had launched mega development projects in Kaghan valley to promote tourism.

“The tourism industry of Kaghan valley has a great potential for the people of the entire Balakot tehsil, Hazara division and even for the people of the entire country and once it is developed on the true lines, hundreds and thousands of locals could get employment here,” said Shah.

Meanwhile the traffic police have fined dozens of motorists and drivers for different violations of traffic rules.

Mudassar Zia, the traffic in-charge, told reporters that in order to ensure the traffic flow on Eidul Azha, a comprehensive strategy was finalised as hundreds and thousands of vehicles carrying tourists would come to Kaghan valley and rest of the district on Eid.