Damaged houses in operation areas of Fata: NA body for making payments to victims

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) has directed the Secretary Relief and Director General Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to make the payment to the affectees without any further delay and to complete the survey of fully-damaged and partially-damaged houses in operation areas in erstwhile Fata at the earliest.

The committee met on Thursday at the Parliament Lodges, Islamabad under the chairmanship of MNA Sajid Khan.

Secretary Relief, Rehabilitation and Settlement, and the director general PDMA briefed the committee on the issue of non-payment of relief package to the temporarily displaced persons (TDPs) of South Waziristan in detail.

During briefing it was informed that a total of 71,124 families of South Waziristan were registered as TDPs and all of them had successfully been returned to their area of origin in a dignified manner after payment Rs35, 000 per family.

It was further informed that the housing survey of 27,132 houses in District South Waziristan had already been completed and cheques distributed to the owners of 38,055 houses so far, and the remaining cheques had already been prepared but got delayed due to Covid-19 pandemic.

The committee directed the secretary Relief and the DG PDMA, government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to make the payment to the affectees without any further delay, and also complete the survey of fully-damaged and partially-damaged houses in operation areas in erstwhile Fata at the earliest.

The committee also discussed the issue raised by MNA Mohsin Dawar, in the House on 16th July, 2020 regarding rehabilitation of the TDPs of North Waziristan during operation Zarb-e-Azb briefly.

Mohsin Dawar pointed out the issue of repatriation of 10,000 families who went to Afghanistan amid operation Zarb-e-Azb against the terrorists, and asked about the preparation and steps taken for return of these families to Pakistan.

The DG PDMA informed that they were ready to rehabilitate them on their repatriation from Afghanistan to Pakistan but the repatriation policy was to be finalised by the federal government.

The committee deferred the said agenda for its next meeting, and decided that the secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other concern quarters would be invited in the next meeting to brief the committee on the repatriation issue of 10,000 families from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

The CEO TESCO briefed the committee on the development works regarding electrification in the tribal districts in detail.

The members from ex-FATA raised their serious concerns on load shedding in erstwhile Fata.

Thereafter, the committee directed the CEO TESCO to minimise the load shedding hours and complete the development works in erstwhile Fata in time.

The meeting was attended by MNAs, Saleh Muhammad, Shahid Ahmad, Gul Zafar Khan, Muhammad Iqbal Khan, Abdul Shakoor Shad, Aliya Hamza Malik, Muhammad Jamalud Din and Ali Wazir.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020