Sunday February 8, 2015
Kabul (BNA) Delay in the cabinet formation created great challenge before the preparatory programs of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meeting aimed at introducing the central Bamyan province as the cultural capital of the organization in few months, official said. Kabir Dadras provincial information and culture director of Bamyan expressed concern over the delay and said the problem has intensely slowed the process for preparatory program to duly introduce Bamyan as the cultural capital of the SAARC. He said some ministries were seeking to launch some special programs in the purpose in the province, but failed to practice them due to still continuation of the acting ministers’ works. 8 cultural heritages—the most well-known ones among many others, have been registered with the scientific-cultural UNESCO. Presence of the cultural heritages in the province had induced the SAARC to introduce Bamyan as its first cultural capital in Afghanistan. The introduction festival is expected to be conducted by the SAARC in three months in the province, where continuation of the acting minsters, particularly the ministry of information and culture—the main supporter of the program faced it with challenges, said Dadras asking the central government for paying serious attention in this respect.
According to him, the festival was a golden chance for Bamyan to be introduced as the SAARC cultural capital. Expansion of 3G internet services across the province, establishment of medical and fine arts faculties and development of tourism and archeology departments within the university of the province as well as asphalting some roads of the city are among the programs, the organization is expected to execute in the province. Creation of provincial agencies of the ministry of foreign, increase in the number of police force to safeguard the cultural heritages and border police in the airport, upturn in the number of trade flight and preparation of the Bamyan airport for different flight, change in the marketing feature and installation of the SAARC cultural symbol in the entrance gate of the city are among other preliminary programs of the commission promised to be kicked off and completed a soon as possible. “But nothing had been still done for the purpose”, said the provincial director of culture and information,” said Dadras adding the outlay of half a million USD from the 2014’s budget had been pledged for the program and expected to be handed over by the ministry of finance to the department in next weeks.
Meanwhile some civil society activists blamed local officials of incompetence for doing more for implementation of the program helping the city as the SAARC cultural capital. A civil society activist, Abdullah Shygan told, while the government leadership is busy in state building programs, the local officials of the province are incompetent to do more for the program. He asked the government for using the availing opportunity and not to repeat the unsuccessful experience resulting in Ghazni’s failure to appropriately be introduced as the Islamic Countries Cultural Center. But, there are some optimism among the citizens and the experts, in case, the province was introduced as the cultural center for the SAARC organization, as Abdul Rahman Rusta sees the province would change into an attractive tourism center and the people would take advantage of the fertility and provided opportunity in beefing up their economy through thousands of tourists’ visits to the ancient city and change it into a touristic hub across Afghanistan and the region. The program if succeeded would help the people boost their economy alongside developing their agricultural business and local yields, with the tourism industry hoped to help grow and sponsor parts of the provincial construction projects. Zaman Ahmadi
