SHC orders culture dept to make Gorakh Hill station functional

Directs DG to shift the authority's head office from Karachi to Dadu

HYDERABAD: As the summer resort, Gorakh Hills in Dadu district, remains largely desolate due to a dearth of facilities and a very rough and steep road, the Sindh High Court has ordered the provincial government to make the hill station functional. The Hyderabad circuit bench, which was informed during the hearing on Thursday that more than Rs2.2 billion have been released for the site so far, ordered a range of measures for implementation by the Gorakh Hill Development Authority (GHDA).

The bench of Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry directed the GHDA director-general to immediately shift the authority's head office from Karachi to Dadu district. The court further directed the authority to procure buses and four-wheel vehicles for transportation of visitors from Dadu and Wahi Pandhi to Gorakh which is over 90 kilometers away from the former and 45 km from the latter.

The resort, which is 5,600 feet above sea level, is not traversable through ordinary vehicles. Most visitors park their private vehicles at Wahi Pandhi, a rural town of Dadu district, and hire four-wheel vehicles for the trip.

The court ordered the authority to provide free transport and lodging to 20 people every week for promotion of the site. The GHDA has been asked to organise a festival at Gorakh in the third week of August.

"A 1.5 liter water bottle is being sold for Rs300 and a plate of Biryani for Rs600 at the resort's only hotel which was built and is being operated by the authority," Advocate Raja Jawad Ali Sehar, the petitioner's counsel, informed the court.

The culture secretary and GHDA DG, while responding to the court's order for submitting the entire record of expenditures since 2008, told the bench that their record is in custody of the National Accountability Bureau.

Answering Justice Panhwar's query about when would they organise the festival in Gorakh, GHDA chairman MNA Rafique Ahmed Jamali said they planned to arrange it in the month of December. The judge noted that people may not turn up at the event in December because of winter and asked the authority to plan it in August.

The court was informed upon inquiry that chairman Jamali is drawing around Rs125,000 per month salary after which the bench asked the chairman that being an MNA he should have dedicated that sum for the development. The SHC also directed the GHDA to build a road from Wahi Pandhi to Gorakh, quarters for the staff, install signboards along the road and make proper security arrangements along the way. The authority will have to submit a report to the court after completing all the schemes.

During the hearing, the court asked the culture secretary to tell the names of 10 resorts in Sindh but the fumbling official could not recall the names.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2019.