PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has said that the infrastructure devastated by recent flash floods in Chitral would be restored temporarily within one month while permanent rehabilitation would take six months.

He said that all rehabilitation operations in the flood-hit district would be jointly carried out by the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments as well as the Pakistan Army. He said that the decision in this regard was taken during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Chitral on Wednesday.

According to an official statement issued here, the chief minister said that high-ranking authorities of the relevant provincial government departments and relief and rehabilitation agencies had reached Chitral and all necessary machinery and other resources were mobilised soon after the first information about the flood was received by the provincial government. He dispelled the impression about scarcity of food in Chitral and said that abundant wheat reserves were available at the provincial reserves centres of Chitral district.

The chief minister was speaking at a gathering of flood-affected people of Koragh village in Mastuj tehsil of Chitral on Wednesday that he visited along with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and officials of the Pakistan Army.

The prime minister and chief minister on this occasion also had an aerial view of the flood devastation in Chitral city, Darosh, Boni, Garam Chashma, Bamborate, Rambur, Mastuj and other affected areas.

Governor Sardar Mahtab Ahmad, General Officer Commanding Maj-Gen Nadir Khan, federal ministers Pervez Rasheed and Mushahidullah Khan, provincial ministers Inayatullah and Atif Khan, MPA Saleem Khan and other members of the provincial assembly from Chitral, MNA Iftikhar Mohiuddin, ACS Dr Hammad Agha and officials of the relevant provincial and federal government departments were also accompanying them.

Mr Khattak thanked the prime minister for visiting Chitral to express sympathies with the affected people and said that both the provincial and federal governments were disturbed at the miseries that the torrential rains brought to them. He, however, vowed that the affected population would be extended all-out help.

The chief minister said that he would stay in Chital till rehabilitation operations in all affected areas of the district were initiated properly. He said that all necessary resources had already been mobilised to carry out repair of flood-hit roads, bridges, water supply schemes, irrigation and agriculture water channels and other affected facilities.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2015

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