Falling into disrepair: The road less travelled

Broken link road restricts access to basic amenities in Banjot.

SWAT:

Residents of the scenic valley of Banjot, located at a distance of 20 kilometres from Mingora, have to walk for miles to buy essential items and find it a challenge to access basic facilities because of a combination of poor governance and a broken link road.

“We have to cover long distances on foot because no vehicle apart from 4x4 vehicles can climb the slope,” said Muhammad Sher, a villager, who was exhausted after walking for two hours with a load of basic necessities strapped to his back.

It is impossible to afford transportation, he notes, due to the high fares being charged. While cars may not be an option for everyone, some can afford donkeys to help carry the load.

“The reasons we sell our commodities at higher rates is because we have to hire jeeps to transport goods to our shops,” Sadiq Shah, a shopkeeper told The Express Tribune.

Shah, a matriculate, has passable knowledge of computers and hopes to install a DSL connection in his village to stay connected with the rest of the world.

“Despite repeated trips to the PTCL office in Mingora, officials refuse to consider the request”, he said.

An overwhelming 90 per cent of children have to quit after primary school, because there is no chance of getting further education in Banjot.

The only high school is situated in Manglawar village, which is impossible to reach, thanks to the state of disrepair of the link road.

“Though we want to be educated, there are no opportunities for us so the fact that 99 per cent of girls are illiterate shouldn’t come as a surprise,” argues Maimoona, a ninth grader who travels to Mingora escorted by her father to attend school.

She said that the major reason for illiteracy in the village is the lack of a high school, adding that travelling to Mingora or other villages is not possible for the very poor.

“The area produces a variety of persimmons, apricots, plums and peaches in addition to wheat, rice, yam and onions, but taking the produce to the market is impossible due to the broken road”, said Shamsher Rehman, a farmer, while speaking to The Express Tribune.

To add insult to injury, there is a single Basic Health Unit (BHU), which is consistently short-staffed. Paramedic Farhad Hussain said there was no staff to run the BHU nor were there enough medicines to dispense to patients.

“We don’t even have a first-aid facility here and the nearest hospital is 23km away, further aggravating the patients’ condition by the time they reach there,” he said.

He demanded the government to provide medical staff and basic facilities at the BHU to facilitate the villagers.

Sports would offer some sort of entertainment to the isolated villagers. Children have nowhere to play in the absence of a ground and are found loitering in front of shops or sitting atop boulders. “Take a picture of me with my sticker,” requested a feisty child who had stuck a sticker of a famous cricketer on his forehead, while striking a pose.

As more and more people are deprived of basic facilities in the country, the question of whether the 20,000 villagers in Banjot can continue to live with no hope for a reprieve becomes even more relevant.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2012.