News
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
ERRA working at a progress rate of 96%
* Authority will wind up its operations by 2011
By Vidya Rana
ISLAMABAD: Since its creation four and half years ago following the tragic October earthquake in 2005, the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) has completed the construction of more than 400,000 houses at a progress rate of over 96 percent in nine affected districts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and NWFP.
These statistics were shared by the ERRA Deputy Chairman Lieutenant General Sajjad Akram during the inaugural session of a 3-day ERRA-led international conference titled “Converting Adversity into Opportunity: Learning from Experiences in Reconstruction and Rehabilitation for Rebuilding Lives and Communities after Disasters” on Monday.
The conference is aimed at sharing experiences and lessons for understanding the principles and approaches of post-disaster reconstruction and rehabilitation.
“It was a real challenge to carry out reconstruction and rehabilitation activities over a rugged terrain of 30,000 square kilo metres covering nine districts in NWFP and AJK. However, we have been able to complete the construction of, 419,624 houses out of the planned 463,243 under the owner-driven rural housing component,” General Akram said.
Asian Development Bank (ADB) Resident Mission Director Rune Stroem while praising ERRA’s work said lessons learnt from this conference would help in guiding future planning and revisiting the approaches that have not worked.
Winding up: ERRA will be winding up its operations by the end of 2011 and is currently going through its ‘sunset’ phase. While responding to a question on the future of ERRA, the deputy chairman of the organisation said only the government would decide about it.
“Until we finish our task, ERRA will continue working as a statutory body. The government would decide on the future of ERRA, however in my personal opinion, it should be merged into the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)... ERRA’s expertise, experience and trained human resource should be passed on to NDMA,” he said.
According to ERRA statistics, 100 percent of the affected people have returned to their new houses. Education, health, roads and bridges, water and sanitation facilities have been restored to a large extent whereas relief has been provided to over 3.5 million displaced persons.
Out of the total 12944 reconstruction projects, 5734 have been completed; 4690 under construction; and 2520 are at the designing / tendering stage. Overall progress rate stands at over 80 percent.
As compared to other hardcore sectors, progress in education sector seems low which is 64 percent as out of the total 5802 projects only 1207 have been completed so far. ERRA has also disbursed Rs 71.26 billion among earthquake victims. World Bank representative Raja Rehan Arshad applauded the efforts of the ERRA in leading the reconstruction and rehabilitation work from the front. “The Rural Housing Reconstruction Programme is being recognised as a global success both in terms of quality and scale,” he observed.
Earlier, ERRA Chairman Altaf M Saleem thanked the development partners for their cooperation and support, which has helped ERRA in achieving its enormous task of reconstruction. A large number of donors, technical experts, civil society organisations, United Nations agencies and government representatives attended the proceedings.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk