PESHAWAR, Jan 13: United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has cut down its budget by 20 per cent for the forthcoming voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan, official sources confirmed. Sources in the Afghan Commissionerate told Dawn here on Monday that the UN refugee agency had formally announced about 20 per cent deduction in its budget to be earmarked for the repatriation programme which is likely to be started from March next. “The UNHCR apparently adopted such measures after receiving poor response from the donors,” they said.

However, an official of the UNHCR, Peshawar office told this scribe that the agency was planning to cut administrative expenses in order to bridge the shortfall in funding for the upcoming repatriation programme from Pakistan.

The agency has announced that it needed $195 million for the year 2003 to help 1.5 Afghan refugees to return to their home land, whereas in 2002, the UNHCR required $271 million for the repatriation, nutrition and rehabilitation of Afghan refugees; and received only $171 million.

Official sources said that the UN agency was likely to adopt several budgetary measures including ban on recruitment to minimize its expenditures to manage funds for the repatriation of the refugees from Pakistan. It is learnt that the agency had decided to move its verification centre at Takhta Baig, Khyber Agency, to Hayatabad township on the outskirts of Peshawar and will retain limited staff at the centre. Apart from this the UN agency would divert funds from other projects to the repatriation plan, if necessary, the sources said.

In 2002 more than 1.5 million Afghans went back to their country under the UNHCR voluntary repatriation programme from Pakistan.

The UNHCR, Kabul and Islamabad recently set a three-year time frame for the return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan and nearly 400,000 Afghans would be assisted to return to their home land in 2003.