News
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
PM directs ERRA to focus on projects 50% complete* ERRA deputy chief says authority has completed over 600,000 seismically safer houses in AJK, KP
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani on Tuesday directed the Earthquake Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (ERRA) to focus on projects which have been completed over 50 percent to ease problems of the earthquake-affected people.
In a meeting, Gilani reviewed progress on projects under the ERRA. The meeting was briefed on development activities covering highways/roads, schools, health and municipal schemes. The prime minister instructed that projects that were more than 50 percent complete must be undertaken to ensure that the benefits reach the earthquake victims.
It was decided that the government would continue to allocate funds through the PSDP and foreign loans for the benefit of earthquake-affected region of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
ERRA Chairman Hamid Yar Hiraj and Deputy Chairman Lieutenant General Sardar Mehmood Ali Khan also gave a presentation on the projects of ERRA. Other senior officers were also present in the briefing.
The meeting was apprised that over Rs 10 billion allocated during the current financial year have already been released.
The prime minister also formed a committee headed by adviser to prime minister on finance to review the proposals for urban development, including the new Balakot City through coordination between KP government, ERRA and federal government departments. Other committee members are AJK prime minister, KP chief minister, ERRA chairman, ERRA deputy chairman and Planning Commission’s deputy chairman.
The ERRA deputy chairman disclosed in the presentation that ERRA has completed over 600,000 seismically safer houses and provision of water and sanitation facilities to the affected communities. The deputy chairman further said that besides the completion of 600,000 houses, programme of rehabilitation of 63,655 disabled persons is also complete, including the Community Livelihood Rehabilitation programme, which benefited 1022 villages.
The ERRA chairman said that ongoing projects which constituted 26 percent of the total projects would be completed by December 2012.
The deputy chairman added that futuristic programmes of poverty alleviation and rehabilitation were underway focusing on the trends of transitory poverty.
The representatives of the AJK, KP and GB expressed their satisfaction that ERRA had developed into a big organisation equipped with requisite expertise to deal with natural calamities.
The ERRA representatives requested for funds of Rs 6 billion from the Finance Ministry to provide educational facilities to about 350,000 children who were still without proper schools.
It was also requested that an amount of Rs 700 million should be released to the AJK government to settle the land acquisition as the delayed release had been hampering the development of urban projects.
The KP government promised to make available encumbrances-free land as delay and cost of construction are adversely affecting ERRA’s strategic projects.
The deputy chairman said that ERRA’s rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts have been acknowledged both by the UK Accreditation Services through ISO 9001 Certification and the conferment of prestigious UN Sasa Kana Award, 2011, most transparent and efficient government organisation.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk