CHITRAL: The residents of the Nichhagh village of Khot valley in Upper Chitral have termed the completion and commissioning of the suspension bridge, the beginning of a new era for the village which was hitherto inaccessible by vehicle due to its undulating topography.

Talking to the local media in Chitral Press Club here the other day, the elders of the isolated village, which is separated by a steep ravine of thousands of feet deep, Nawab Khan, Didar Ali Shah, Faizur Rehman, Sardar Wali and others said that they became familiar with modern facilities of life only after the village was connected with the valley road through a suspension bridge last year.

They said that ploughing with the help of tractors and harvesting wheat with thresher machines was a pleasant experience for them last year as they had only seen this in others villages of the valley situated on the opposite side of the ravine.

They said that Aga Khan Rural Support Programme had not only constructed the suspension bridge over the ravine but also supported the village community to widen the pedestrian pathway through the mountainous and uneven slopes to develop it into road through which passed all types of vehicles including tractor and trolley.

The villagers recalled their ordeals of how they had carried their patients and injured to the valley road on stretchers and on the back of mules and horses.

The elders said that their household income had also increased over the past year after the villagers started to grow potato on commercial scale and dispatch the produce to the market

The villagers also expressed their pleasure that the prices of daily-use items had also registered visible drop due to reduction in transportation expenses to the village.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2024