TIMERGARA: The local teachers have lauded installation of solar panels at state-run schools in Lower Dir and hoped that it would help to resolve the problems of prolonged power outages and low voltage.

Bakht Nawaz Khan, the head teacher of a primary school, told this scribe that during the last eight or 10 years, students and teachers faced miseries owing to unscheduled power outage and low voltage. `Now solar panels have installed at the school with a total cost of Rs175,000,` he added.The headmistress of a girls` school also showed happiness over installation of solar panels at her school. She said that they had no problem to pump out drinking water and run ceiling fans at school after installation of the solar panels. She said the panels had the capacity to run water pump and 20 to 25 ceiling fans.

An official of elementary and secondary education department said that so far solar panels had been installed in 1,543 schools both for boys and girls in the district. He said that Rs209.63 million was installation of those panels.

He said that the department transferred over Rs210 million to the accounts of schools in Lower Dir for the purpose. He said that schools would have 24 hours electricity that would benefit more than 90,000 students and 4,000 teachers in the district.

CONFERENCE: The participants of a donor conference here onThursday donated Rs8 million to Al-Khidmat Foundation for taking care of orphans and vulnerable communities.

The conference was addressed by AKF central president Abdul Shakoor, provincial president Khalid Wigas Chamkani, AKF director national disaster management Fazal Mehmood and former MNA Maulana Asadullah.

They said that AKF was providing free education and boarding facility to orphan students besides running hospitals and ambulance service in the district. They appealed to well-off people to support AKF so that it could continueits services.

Also in the day, University of Malakand Vice-chancellor Dr Rehmat Ali Khan asked students and youth to donate blood to the needy thalassaemia patients.

Addressing a conference, he said that saving one life was equal to saving the entire humanity.