CHITRAL: Aimed at building coordination among different organisations working on disaster risk reduction and management in Chitral, a project has been launched jointly by Justice, Aid and Development (JAD) Foundation, the district government and Barcelona Provincial Council.

In this regard, a workshop on the `Disaster Risk Governance Project` was held at a local hotel here on Thursday.

Speaking on the occasion, district nazim Maghfirat Shah said that there were a large number of organisations working on disaster risk reduction in the district, but they were free from each other. He said that in the absence of coordination among them duplication of projects was rampant in the same locality leading to the wastage of resources and time.

He hoped that the project would also bridge the gap between the government and the community to build disasterresilient system. Earlier, the project representatives, including Harir Shah, said that it would lay an institutional foundation for long-term cooperation for resilience building of the communities.

POWER PROJECTS FACE DELAY: Koh Integrated Development Programme`s chairman Abdul Ghaffar has demanded of the government to take notice of the delay in release of funds for the ongoing hydropower projects by the Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organisation (Pedo).

In a press statement issued here on Thursday, he said that Pedo had outsourced the construction of 55 hydropower houses in the district to contractors three years ago, but the delay in release of funds was delaying completion of the projects.

Mr Ghaffar claimed that the Pedo high-upshad been hindering progress of the projects while over 90 per cent of households in the district were without electricity. He said that work on some of the power projects had been stopped altogether due to paucity of funds.