Link road facilitates dwellers of far-off Chitral village

PESHAWAR: The residents of Bang Bala in Yarkhun valley of Upper Chitral have said that the completion of the link road in their village has fully relieved them of the problems ranging from transportation of goods to their doorsteps to mechanization of farming.

The elders of the village Sher Faraz, Gul Yousuf Khan, Sher Nawaz Khan and others told reporters here that before the completion of the road two years ago, they used mules to transport goods from the main road to the interior of the village in this advanced age.

They said that the newly constructed road was not less than a game changer in their lives as it provided them with the opportunity of availing the modern facilities which were not possible without vehicles.

They expressed their gratitude to Aga Khan Rural Support Programme for the facility which constructed the road under its Central Asian Poverty Programme carrying it out on the basis of community participation.

The village elites said that they carried the stretchers of the patients and the injured to the main roads on shoulders in the absence of the road facility while transportation of construction materials cost them too heavy while many villagers started construction of concrete houses soon after they got the road facility. The villagers also mentioned the benefits they derived in the sector of agriculture as the arrival of tractor, thrasher and land leveling machinery became possible while before the road facility, they carried the wheat bales to the main road for thrashing.

They added that a large tract of uneven and hilly tracts of land were developed this year after the heavy machinery of land leveling moved inside the village which increased their land holding.