KOHAT: The fate of the thousands of residents of civilian-populated areas in the cantonment hangs in balance as neither the Kohat Development Authority (KDA) nor the cantonment owns them, leaving them in the lurch.

They are demanding their attachment either with the KDA or the tehsil municipal administration, Kohat, as the cantonment board does not consider them its residents despite collecting taxes from them since partition.

Due to this neglect, roads and streets in these localities are unpaved for years; drains usually remain choked, and there is persistent water shortage.

Owner of a grocery store said they paid huge property tax to the cantonment authority every year but the streets were unpaved and drains choked.

Rehmat Elahi of Mamozinna locality said he hired a house in the cantonment in the hope to have all basic amenities of life but he was forced to dump garbage in the empty plots as nobody came for collecting it.

Prof IT Williams, who is also the resident of the same colony, said he had not seen a sweeper in the area for years and that the residents opened the choked drains on self-help basis.

Other residents of Mamozinna complained that sometimes the locality was disconnected from the electricity line of the cantonment and put on the KDA’s, but the Pesco also disconnected it, plunging them in darkness.

Similarly, the residents of Shams Colony, Pathan Centre Road and CB College Road said they had bought houses in the cantonment at Rs20 to Rs50 million but unpaved roads and streets had stressed them out.

Vice-chairman of the cantonment board, Asad Javed, who represents the civilians living in the area, told Dawn that they had no funds to improve the cleanliness situation.

He said they were not allowed to generate revenue from construction of roads.

Mr Javed stated that sweepers refused to accept orders from the civilian elected members of the cantonment board.

POWER BREAKDOWN: A prolonged power breakdown caused severe problems to the patients at the KDA teaching hospital and women and children hospital, and also created water shortage in the city.

A fault in the main Rawalpindi road grid station on Sunday night resulted in power breakdown which continued until Monday morning.

When contacted, Pesco officials told Dawn that they had got an eight-hour permit for some repair work on the OTS road from the deputy commissioner.

To a question, they regretted that the consumers could not be informed beforehand.

Published in Dawn January 24th, 2017