The opposition in the Senate on Monday asked the government to immediately start the reconstruction phase for early resettlement of earthquake affectees to avert what it smelled a looming threat of displaced people may become either beggars or decoits.
Speaking on a motion moved in the Upper House on Friday last to debate the October 8 earthquake-caused devastation, the opposition also repeated its demand for the establishment of a parliamentary committee to oversee the reconstruction and rehabilitation under the military set-up.
An opposition senator proposed that a report of the reconstruction authority should be submitted to the parliament after every three months to ensure accountability and transparency.
Almost all the opposition lawmakers who spoke on the motion termed low and slow response by the international community as a failure of the country's foreign policy and asked the government to review it.
They also demanded to delay all mega projects underway including the construction of a New General Headquarter (GHQ) in Islamabad and divert the funds to the reconstruction of devastated areas.
Two lady ruling Senators, however, advocated President General Pervez Musharraf's decision of undertaking the reconstruction task through military, owing to what they thought a disciplined and transparent system the army had to meet such challenges.
"The tent villages and whatever else the government is claiming to do is not a permanent solution. They (affectees) must be resettled immediately. Otherwise, there is a every possibility of they becoming either an army of beggars or a gang of looters," Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Senator Sardar Mehtab said.
"The earthquake has shattered a good part of the population. Their whole social fabric has been destroyed and if they were not resettled in the areas they were living in urgently the consequences will be of grave nature," he added.
The PML-N Senator also contested the official casualty figures, saying more than some 0.2 million people had lost lives in the country's worst-ever natural disaster.
Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal's Professor Khurshid Ahmed lamented the decision of establishing the reconstruction authority without taking the parliament and the federal cabinet into confidence.
"The superceding of the parliament and the whole of the civil system is a political blunder and can have dire repercussions," he warned.
"The decisions are being taken abruptly by an individual. The society is being militarised. It's a paradigm shift and is very dangerous for the country," the MMA Senator emphatically said.
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