PESHAWAR: Minister wants NWFP declared calamity-hit province
By Bureau Report
PESHAWAR, Feb 17: Senior Minister of NWFP Siraj-ul-Haq has demanded that the entire province of NWFP be declared a calamity-hit province and the losses suffered by a large segment of its population
be compensated from the resources which the federal government generates from the province.
"The Frontier province should be declared a calamity-hit area and the Centre should persuade foreign donor agencies to finance relief efforts for the people affected by the prolonged spell of rain and snowfall recently," senior minister of the NWFP government, Siraj-ul-Haq, said here on Thursday.
He said that the NWFP government's parliamentary jirga, which comprises political parties' elected representatives from the Frontier province, in its meeting held last Wednesday had decided that the federal government should be asked to carry out relief works in the affected parts of the province.
"We are confronting a human tragedy in the NWFP. Some 60,000 people remain stranded in snow in the upper parts of Swat district and there are several other places where stranded families could not be reached because of roads remaining blocked.
Therefore, the federal government should help the affected people by setting aside its political differences with the provincial government," said the minister, who holds the finance, planning and development portfolio in the provincial cabinet.
He said that several villages had been buried as a result of avalanches and landslides, and added that people were facing food shortages and relief efforts were needed on a massive scale to rehabilitate a large segment of the population hit hard by heavy snow and rains in the upper parts of the province.
He rejected the notion that the provincial government was exaggerating the losses suffered due to rain and snowfall saying that it was being fabricated by some elements in the federal government. He said, "Natural disaster is not a matter of politics.
The federal government should analyse the situation on its own and determine the losses suffered by the people. If they don't believe us, then they should determine our losses on their own." Replying to a question, he said that the federal government should compensate the people of the NWFP from the revenue it generates from the province.
He further said: "We have not asked that financial support be provided to us by diverting resources from any specific head. We are the poorest province of the country with the highest ratio of people living below the poverty line.
Besides, the provincial government is also faced with growing fiscal deficit because the federal government is not announcing the next National Finance Commission Award."
On this occasion, he thanked the government of Sindh for announcing a Rs50-million donation for relief works in the NWFP. He said: "The NWFP government was expecting a similar gesture from Punjab. Being an elder brother, Punjab should also extend financial support to the NWFP and Balochistan in the hour of its need."
On its own part, he added, the NWFP government had so far paid more than Rs30 million as compensation to the families who suffered human losses and to injured persons. He stressed, "Previously, it had taken the aggrieved families a year to get compensation but on this occasion we paid compensation to the affected people as soon as they suffered the losses."
