K-P to give payouts for rebuilding houses

Disbursement of funds among flood victims to start today in DI Khan, Tank districts

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has formally approved the disbursement of compensation cash for the rehabilitation of flood damaged houses and the process of payment is to start from the most affected district of DI Khan.

This was decided by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on Friday.

Furthermore, keeping in view the extensive damages in Balochistan province due to the recent flash floods, Mahmood Khan ordered allocation of 20% of the donations collected in the Chief Minister Flood Relied Fund for undertaking health and livestock related relief activities in Balochistan. 

He said that seven health teams will leave for Balochistan on Saturday (today) whereas livestock teams have already been deupted who are taking part in relief activities in Naseerabad, Jhal Magsi, Jafarabad and Sobatpur, the most affected districts in the province.

Khan was chairing a meeting of the committee set up to oversee the management and utilization of the Chief Minister Flood Relief Fund.

Provincial Ministers Taimur Saleem Jhagra and Kamran Bangash, Chief Secretary Dr Shahzad Bangash, Secretary Information Arshad Khan, administrative secretaries of other departments, PDMA director-general and other relevant officials attended the meeting.

The forum reviewed the mechanism for utilization of funds and decided that the provision of compensation packages would be started from the heavily affected districts of DI Khan and Tank.

The compensation package of Rs4 lakh per house would be provided for a destroyed house and Rs1.6 lakh for a damaged one.

The chief minister directed that the authorities should ensure that each and every penny of these funds is provided to the deserving people and made it clear that negligence in this regard will not be tolerated.

The chief minister said that rehabilitation of flood affectees is the top most priority of his government and billions of ruppees had been allocated for this purpose.

He maintained that despite severe financial constraints, the provincial government had made sustaintial increase in the compensation packages to ensure maximum relief to the affected families. 

Mahmood Khan noted that the ultimate goal is to help the flood victims and enable them to return to their normal lives, adding that the provincial government in not only taking concrete steps to rehabilitate the flood affectees of the province, but it also extending its all-out support to people affected by floods in Balochistan.