SWABI: Public transporters have demanded early repair of a three kilometers stretch of Topi-Tarbela road.

They told mediapersons here on Sunday that it was the responsibility of the Chinese company, undertaking the dam project, to reconstruct the road.

They said road had become immovable because of plying of heavily-loaded trucks taking construction materials to the under-construction Tarbela Dam’s fourth extension project.

The road links Tarbela Dam, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology and residential colonies of the dam with the Swabi district headquarters.

The transporters said the monsoon rains would cause further damage to the road. They said in some areas deep ditches had developed, making it difficult for the vehicles to pass through it. In case of rain, water remains stagnant on the road for days.

FIRECRACKERS: The local administration has been urged to ban use of firecrackers on ‘chant raat’ and on Eid days and punish those violating the ban.

The demand was made by activists of local welfare bodies while talking to reporters on Sunday. They said the district police failed to control the massive use of firecrackers every year.

“Use of firecrackers is so rampant that even mosques are not spared,” Khan Gul of Pirtab Welfare Society said.

The social activists said Wapda had enforced ban on firecrackers in Tarbela Dam residential colonies, but elsewhere in the district police had failed to implement the same.

Members of welfare bodies said factories should not be allowed to produce the firecrackers in the first place.

Published in Dawn ,July 13th, 2015

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