ISLAMABAD, Oct 7: Three years since a devastating earthquake ravaged large swathes of Azad Kashmir and NWFP, life is a nightmare for the survivors, with almost quarter of a million families yet to get full compensation for their destroyed houses.
Missed targets, unfulfilled commitments, procedural flaws, dilapidated infrastructure and rising inflationary pressures are adding to the woes of the survivors, many of whom had no other option but to migrate.
The data released by the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) reveals that about 462,900 families were supposed to get compensation in four instalments. The number of families receiving all the four instalments was 218,317 or about 47 per cent of the total. This means that more than 52 per cent affected families, or about 245,000 families, had not received compensation in full.
According to the data, of the total of 610,716 destroyed houses, including 101,091 partially destroyed, construction of 409,613 houses has been completed while another 118,406 houses were under construction. Construction of 35,972 houses is yet to start.
An amount of Rs59.68 billion has so far been disbursed for subsidising construction of houses in villages.
In the education sector, out of a total of 5,344 schools, there were plans to construct 4052 by the end of the current year, which was revised to 3849. So far only 175 of them have been completed and 1282 are under construction. The students have been forced to study in non-winterised tents, posing health hazards with the winter season approaching.
Out of the total 307 health facilities destroyed three years ago, only 38 have been rebuilt. The initial plan proposed building of 237 houses before the end of the current year.
None of the 12 District Headquarter Hospitals has been reconstructed and seven of them are still in pre-construction stage. Only 2 out of 11 tehsil headquarter hospitals, 12 out of 49 rural health centres and 22 out of 224 basic health units have so far been completed.
The promise of restoring all the 4080 destroyed water supply schemes by the end of this year also remained unfulfilled and only 1,466 of them were completed. Likewise, 66 out of 628 sanitation schemes have been completed.
None of the 23 solid waste management system sites affected by the quake have been completed and so far work has commenced only on seven of them.
The transport sector is no different. Out of the 7000km of roads that were to be built or reconstructed, not even 10 per cent have been completed.
Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) has so far disbursed over Rs15 billion for reconstruction of seismically-safe housing units, health and education facilities and infrastructure schemes in 34 union councils of NWFP and AJK.
The PPAF has disbursed this amount through its six partner organisations for reconstruction of 121,448 seismically-safe housing units out of total 122,332 damaged, 19 health and education facilities, and capacity building and infrastructure schemes in Erra-assigned 34 union councils of AJK and NWFP.
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