SHANGLA: People of Bar Batkot village of Bisham tehsil on Saturday said that their area had been f acing severe shortage of drinking water, but the problem could not be resolved despite their repeated requests to the government and public representatives.

Bar Batkot village council nazim Rafiullah, Islam Zada and others told mediapersons here at Bisham that the area with population of over 8,000 people had been kept deprived of the basic needs by the elected members.

They said that the area had no health facility and the local people had to take their patients to the Bisham hospital.

Rafiullah said that there had been several cases in which the women and other patients died on way to the hospital.

He said that the political leaders just visit their area during the elections and af ter winning the seats they never bothered to resolve their problems.

Islam Zada said that he himself met with elected representatives from the area and officials of the Public Health Engineering Department, but no one came forward to resolve the issue of water shortage. He said that the area women brought water from springs located far away from their homes.

The Batkot residents threatened staging agitation if the government did not take steps for resolution of their problems.

TEACHERS UNION: School principals and education of ficers formed a district-based union here on Saturday. In this connection, a meeting was held at Alpuri where the participants claimed that the finance department was not resolving issues being f aced by the school teachers.

Principal Jehan Didar was picked up as president of the union, principal Mirza Ali general secretary, principal Nawab Ali senior vice-president and Nisar Khan as vice-president. They vowed to work for securing due rights of the educationists.