MANSEHRA: The local government chairmen from Torghar on Sunday sought support from non-governmental organisations to rehabilitate infrastructure destroyed during natural calamities and to expand essential services to households still deprived of them in the district’s far-flung villages. “We do not have electricity transmission lines in most of the district and are completely reliant on micro-hydropower units, which were washed away in the 2022 floods, and an NGO recently rehabilitated three of them,” Taib Khan, the chairman of Village Council Darbani, told reporters.
He said that four years of the local governments’ term in Hazara division was going to wrap up next month but they were still deprived of the funds, honuorarium and powers enshrined in the LG Act 2013. “Three small hydropower units, which are the only source of electricity, five water supply schemes and two irrigation channels washed away in floods some three years ago are recently rehabilitated by Sungi Development Foundation with the financial assistance of Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, benefiting over 1200 households,” he added.
He said NGOs work in collaboration with local communities and later handed over those projects as ownership, which was the essence of the grassroots governance system.
The Chairman of Village Council Khnar Sharif, Gul Jamal, criticised the government for paralysing the local government system by depriving their voters of civic and other services for the last four years.
