PESHAWAR: The World Bank has pledged $25 million for reconstruction of about 1,300 health and education facilities destroyed by the recent floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to officials.

They said that provincial government was compiling a consolidated report regarding losses suffered by all line departments due to floods and the estimated amount needed for reconstruction and rehabilitation of the damaged infrastructure.

The report will be presented to various donor agencies by the government towards the end of the current month. Different organisations such as USAID, KfW, World Bank and others would announce their financial and technical support to make the damaged health and education facilities operational and rehabilitate water channels, roads and installations of other departments affected floods.

Officials involved in preparation of the overall report about the losses to the government buildings and other installations due to floods said that the WB had already pledged $25 million including $15 million for education sector and $10 million for health sector under its Human Capital Investment Project.

1,100 educational and 256 health facilities affected in province

As per data collected by elementary and secondary education department, 1,100 schools were damaged by floods throughout the province that required reconstruction to make them operational. According to it, 246 schools were completely damaged and 838 were partially damaged by floods in the province.

Most of the affected schools are situated in Dera Ismail Khan, Lower Dir, Lower Kohistan, Swat, Tank, Upper Chitral, Upper Kohistan, Mansehra, Nowshera and Haripur. The data shows that 235 primary schools were damaged completely while the number of partially damaged ones was 683.

Officials said that WB had already pledged the amount for reconstruction of educational facilities. The bank, according to officials, has also expressed willingness to allocate $10 million for the health facilities destroyed by rains and floods.

The data compiled by health department shows that the devastating floods destroyed 256 health facilities throughout the province. The affected health facilities include 56 fully and 200 partially damaged hospitals.

The fully damaged facilities included 19 civil dispensaries (CDs), 33 basic health units (BHUs) and four rural health centres (RHCs), mostly located in Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Karak and Kohistan Lower and a couple of hospitals in Swat, Dir, North and South Waziristan.

Officials said that most of the affected health facilities were made functional but assistance of donors was still needed to make them operational on permanent basis and repair the equipment and other installations.

They said that health department was holding camps in those hospitals that were completely damaged while alternate arrangements were put in place to facilities patients in the partially damaged health facilities.

They said that 70 per cent of the damaged health facilities were located in 13 most-affected districts that required urgent rehabilitation. They said that there were a total of 2,651 health facilities in the province that received about 2 million patients per day.

“These facilities include teaching/tertiary care hospitals, category A,B and C hospitals, BHUs, RHCs, CDs, mother and child health centres, civil hospitals, sub-health centres, community health centres, leprosy centres and others,” said officials. They said that health department required Rs4 billion to reconstruct the destroyed facilities.

They said that most of the damaged health facilities in the flood-hit districts were primary healthcare outlets that offered services to the locals. They said that a final estimate about the damage caused by floods would be finalised by the planning and development department that would be discussed with donor organisations.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2022