MUZAFFARABAD: Almost six-and-a-half-year down the lane, more than 200,000 Kashmiri children in Azad Kashmir are still quenching their thirst for education under the open sky, braving biting winter cold and scorching summer heat, as 62 per cent of the earthquake-affected educational institutions are either under construction ‘at a snail’s pace’ or work on them is yet to be started, it has been observed.

According to official figures, around 2,792 educational institutions were affected in AJK by the devastating earthquake of October 2005 and of them reconstruction of 402 was pledged directly by the donors, 309 under the Asian Development Bank funded Earthquake Emergency Assistance Project, 201 under the World Bank funded Earthquake Additional Financing Project, 35 (mostly colleges) under the Saudi Fund Development and Kuwait Fund and the rest (1,845) under the government of Pakistan (GoP) funding.

The GoP-funding is the money Islamabad had received from the international community as soft loan/credit to exclusively expend in the quake-hit areas of AJK and KP. This money was supposed to be channelled in the affected regions through the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra).

However, so far, 713 educational institutions in AJK have been completed while 995 are under construction, of which 931 are GoP funded.

But the most worrisome problem is non-commencement of 821 projects in the education sector, 764 of which are to be built from the GoP-funding.

Even the under-construction schools are witnessing progress at a snail’s pace due to meagre financial releases, giving rise to uncertainties about their timely completion though officials claim that at least 325 of them will be completed by the end of 2012.

“Indeed it’s a great challenge for us all. Currently, over 200,000 students are compelled to study under the open sky. We need uninterrupted flow of funds to accomplish the targets in education sector as early as possible,” said Mian Abdul Waheed, minister for school education.

“One can tolerate everything but not the plight of the lot which we describe as builders of our future,” he added, referring to students.

Other sectors: Education is not the only sector where a sizeable number of projects are awaiting completion or even initiation; some other sectors also depict a similar picture.

For example, sources said, of the 232 projects in AJK urban development programme, 206 were yet to begin, much to the dismay of their prospective beneficiaries who have been frequently voicing their concerns in this regard.

Cash flow: According to official sources, major cash flow problems since April 2010 have severely affected the reconstruction programme.Original requirement for 2011-12 for the ongoing and new projects was worked out at Rs32.328 billion. But in view of financial crunch, minimum requirement/demand recommended by the Erra Board was Rs22.646 billion.

However, the federal government released only Rs10 billion to Erra for entire reconstruction programme and of it only Rs2.27 billion were released to AJK till the end of February.

The AJK government, sources said, had also demanded Rs700 million out of Rs2.087 billion allocation from the ‘President of Pakistan’s Relief Fund’ for land acquisition for the urban development programme. However, the demand has not been met as yet.

When contacted, Director General State Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (Serra) Dr Syed Asif Hussain cautiously agreed that steady flow of funds was desperately required to carry on the reconstruction work. “Remaining work can be completed within two years provided the required resources are made available in time… Otherwise, we can’t say how much time this process will take,” he said.

However, former AJK Prime Minister and PML-N leader Raja Farooq Haider told Dawn that the problem had its roots in “shifting by Islamabad of reconstruction-related funds to somewhere else.

“The central government has diverted Rs100 billion meant for reconstruction in quake-hit areas to other sectors. Of this amount, Rs56 billion were to be spent in AJK. This is why the reconstruction programme has run into snags,” he said.

The Serra chief avoided offering any comments on Mr Haider’s standpoint.

Instead, he said: “There are countless achievements in reconstruction programme, such as private housing, health water supply, transport and communications and environment, and these should not go unnoticed.”

However, he admitted, timely completion of schools as well as the AJK urban development programme still remained the main challenge.