Naran, the commercial hub of Kaghan Valley, is set to welcome tourists as machinery has been deployed to cut through glaciers on the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad (MNJ) Road to restore traffic on the artery.
“Traffic between Naran and the rest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is expected to resume within a couple of days after remaining suspended for nearly six months,” Hussain Deen, chairman of Kaghan Hoteliers Association, told reporters on Sunday.
The National Highway Authority (NHA) launched an operation last week to clear glaciers and snow from the MNJ Road to restore connectivity between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Traffic on the route had been suspended in November last year following the first snowfall of the winter season in Kaghan Valley. Officials said that while machinery was actively cutting glaciers and removing snow, full restoration of traffic could take another four to five weeks.
Hoteliers have started returning to Naran to resume their businesses and prepare for the influx of tourists. However, roads leading to Lake Saiful Muluk and other tourist destinations remain blocked due to heavy snow and landslides.
“This winter, the valley up to Naran and beyond towards Babusar Top did not receive as heavy snowfall as in previous years, which is why the MNJ Road has been cleared up to Naran in a shorter time,” a resident said.
Meanwhile, the police have yet to reactivate their posts in Basal, Plundrain, Soach, Lake Road, Battakundi, and Jalkhad areas to ensure the safety of passengers and tourists travelling within Kaghan Valley and between KP and GB.
According to officials, the police station currently operating in the lower Kaghan Valley will soon be shifted to Naran, and other posts will be gradually restored as the MNJ Road is cleared of snow and landslides.
MAMMOGRAPHIC SERVICES: The King Abdullah Teaching Hospital (KATH) has become the first tertiary healthcare facility in the Hazara division to launch mammographic services for women patients with breast cancer.
“KATH has become the first public sector tertiary healthcare facility, and second in Hazara after the Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Oncology and Radiotherapy, Abbottabad, to extend the mammography services to women patients from the
upper parts of Hazara division,” Jawad Majeed Swati, the medical superintendent, told reporters on Sunday.
He said that Saudi Arabia, which had reconstructed KATH following the devastating 2005 earthquake, also supplied mega consignments of the state-of-the-art surgical instruments and equipment worth over Rs 2 billion to the facility.
“We have now installed almost all of them, including mammography, MRI, CT scan and Ultrasound machines, and over a dozen dialysis machines to provide quality healthcare and diagnostic services to patients,” Mr Swati said.
Earlier, he said patients from Mansehra, Battagram, Torghar, and three Kohistan districts availed treatment at the Abbottabad institute.
“Now patients are not referred to Abbottabad, but instead provided healthcare and hospitalising services at KATH,” Mr Swati said.
He said that free medicines and diagnostic services were being provided to hospitalised patients under the Sehat Sahulat Programme.
Source: DAWN EPAPER
