A forgotten land: Remote and ill-equipped, Elum an inhospitable valley

Around 300 households deprived of basic infrastructure, health and education.

SWAT: Dwellers of Elum valley have little option but to wait and wish for better living standards. The valley houses over 300 households but has no water supply system, no health or education facility, and even lacks link roads to connect its scattered towns.

After primary school, most of the children turn towards religious education and get admissions in local seminaries. There is only one boys’ primary school that was set up back in 1960, whereas a girls’ primary school that was constructed some 15 years back could not be made functional due to unavailability of female teachers.

“After passing fifth grade, the children have no opportunities for further education as the nearest middle school is some 8 kilometres away,” said Akbar Ali Shah, a local teacher. Only those children whose parents send them to live with their relatives settled close to the schools or manage to get them into boarding schools have better prospects. Locals have urged the elected bodies to make the girls’ school functional so their literacy rate could be improved.

Some areas of the valley fall under the jurisdiction of Swat District, while a major part falls under Buner District; however, the valley is cut off from both the districts. “We have to go to Buner for all official correspondence, which means traversing a considerable distance, but nobody has bothered to construct a link road here,” said Javed, a social activist.

Inaccessibility to other regions is a major issue. In the absence of a link road, people have to fetch water from far-off springs or streams. “Our women cover long distances to fetch water, which wastes a lot of their time. Often, it takes three to four hours, but on rainy days it becomes impossible to get there as the paths are muddy and slippery,” said Mursaleen, an elder, adding that they cannot afford to install pipelines to provide water in their homes.

In spite of disease or discomfort, they have to walk five to six hours to reach hospitals either in Buner or Swat. “Many of the serious patients are fastened to charpoys and taken to a hospital, but a lot of them die on the way. Women in maternity cases face complications, posing risk to both the women and their babies” Syed Farooq, a local.

The regional minister for education could not be reached for comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2012.