MANSEHRA: The Pakistan Tehreeki-Insaf`s federal and provincial governments have failed to address the issues being faced by the residents of Balakot and its adjoining areas in accordance with the apex court ruling given by then chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar in January 2019.

This was stated by Shiraz Mehmood Qureshi, a social activist on whose writ petition the apex court had issued the ruling, while talking to mediapersons here on Sunday.

`The Supreme Court had ordered both the federal and provincial governments to remove hurdles to the Rs13 billion New Balakot City housing project and rebuild the infrastructure destroyed in 2005 earthquake. However, nothing practical has been done on the grounddespite passage of 20 months since the verdict,` he said.

He said that then chief justice, who had officially visited Balakot along with two apexcourtjudgesin2018,hadorderedthe federal government to release Rs1 billion for the development of NBC housing project, but that amount had not been released as yet.

Meanwhile, the residents of Balakot in a meeting decided to launch an agitation against the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf governments in the centre and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The meeting, which was attended among others by Balakot traders body president Javed Iqbal and local elders Mohammad Maroof, Mian Ashraf and Tahir Khan, decided to come onto streets if the government didn`t release the allotment letters to over 5,000 surviving families who were still living in prefabricated shelters.