Local people were given repeated assurances by the Govt & MPs but failed to fulfil their promises.
KOHAT
The people of oil- and gas-rich Shakardarra town here have been facing shortage of drinking water and prolonged power outages as the successive governments and MPs from the area failed to fulfil their promises.
Huge oil and gas reserves were discovered in Shakadarra in late nineties and production started in 2010. The local people were given repeated assurances by the MPs that their fate would be changed as the OGDCL and Hungarain MOL would launch welfare programmes for them in line with the Constitution.
Shakardarra urban town-I nazim Shakir Mehmood told this scribe on phone that the government had been promising them a full-fledged hospital in place of the basic health unit, a grid station, water supply scheme from Indus River, schools, colleges and roads, but they were yet to get such facilities. He said that patients had to go to Kohat city even for ultrasound as the local hospital lacked the needed machinery.
He said that the national and foreign companies working in the area were doing little for uplift of the local people despite earning billions of rupees annually.
He said that gas was free in five kilometers limit of the wells, but its pressure was kept low due to which they could not run their power generators. He said that despite their repeated protests the problem could not be resolved.
Mr Mehmood held law minister Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi and other MPs from Kohat responsible for problems of the area people, saying they had been getting big sums of royalty funds but not spending them on welfare projects.
He claimed that only last year the minister had received royalty funds of Rs330 million, but the people were craving for basic necessities such as water, power and health.
