People refuse to vacate houses for Dasu project

MANSEHRA: The people of Saglu in the Upper Kohistan district have refused to vacate their houses acquired for the Dasu Hydropower Project until the Wapda honours its commitments.

“The district administration has served notices on Dasu dam-affected families asking them to vacate their houses within a week. This deadline is unacceptable to us until Wapda provides basic amenities at the alternative piece of land,” the former provincial lawmaker Abdul Sattar Khan told protesters assembled in Dasu, the district headquarters, on Tuesday. The protesters raised slogans to support their demands and later assembled outside the deputy commissioner’s offices.

Abdul Sattar Khan alleged that Wapda and the district administration had reneged on their agreements signed with affected families from time to time and now served them with notices to get their houses vacated in such a short time. “The families who have been served with the notices are still without the Chulha (Stove) package, which grants them the financial assistance before such displacement,” he said.

The former MPA said that the district administration had allotted an alternative piece of land where the displaced families would build their houses before shifting there.

“How can we build houses on the allotted piece of land, which is still without potable water and other facilities,” he asked. Mukhtar Khan, a political worker, said that locals were still without employment in the Dasu Hydropower Project despite an agreement with the Wapda and district administration.

“The Wapda should first provide basic amenities, roads, streets, water and other facilities at alternative pieces of land so that displaced families could shift there,” he said.

Mukhtar Khan said that the district administration should give them more time and civic services so that they could vacate their houses and construct new ones there.