SHANGLA: The residents of Shang union council of Bisham here have threatened that they would not allow the planned laying of the transmission line of the under-construction Dassu hydropower project through their farmlands.

They made the warning during a jirga held with Bisham assistant commissioner Adnan Khan here on Monday.

Elders, including former union council nazim Mohammad Riaz Khan, former candidate for PK-28 Abbas Khan, Ifraq Khan, Fazal Mabood, Amirzeb, Gul Fareen and others, spoke on the occasion.

They said despite their opposition the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) had also laid a transmission line through their lands back in 2010 to evacuate power from the 72MW Khan Khwar power station.

Riaz Khan said high tension cables of Khan Khwar hydropower station passed over their houses, posing threats to their lives.

“It was our fourth jirga with the Bisham assistant commissioner. We ask Wapda not to lay another transmission line through their farmland,” he said.

Ifraq Khan said they would not allow NTDC to erect towers on their agricultural lands. He said Shang was the only place in the entire Bisham tehsil where some kanals of farmlands were left, where people grew citrus, guava, wheat, corn and vegetables.

Fazal Mabood said the people would resist if the authorities went ahead with their plan.

Assistant commissioner Adnan Khan assured the jirga participants that he would take up their demands with the deputy commissioner and NTDC officials.

LAID TO REST: A coal miner, Safdar Ali, who died in an incident in Choa Saidan Shah area of Chakwal district the other day, was laid to rest in his ancestral graveyard in Landai area here on Monday.

It was the sixth body of a coal miner brought to Shangla in the last 10 days from different parts of the country.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2024