June 30, 2006	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 3, 1427

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PESHAWAR, June 29: People affected by last year’s floods have accused the provincial government of ignoring them. The flood destroyed or damaged agricultural land, livestock and houses in about 75 villages of three central districts of the province.

Though floodwater receded a year ago after keeping some 30,000 acres of agricultural land in Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera districts submerged for four to eight weeks, its after-effects still persist and people have not fully recovered from the problems created by Kabul and Swat rivers.

The provincial government, according to official sources, had distributed Rs2.6 million in Nowshera and a much bigger amount in Charsadda and Peshawar districts as compensation to those whose houses were completely or partially damaged.

However, the affected people have complained that district authorities who conducted survey to determine losses did not acknowledge large number of claims for financial assistance.

“Only those people managed to get compensation who were close either to big-wigs of the district government or members of the provincial assembly from the area,” said Salim Khan, a resident of Shala Khel village, Nowshera district.

They showed this correspondent many houses with cracked walls and said the government did not pay compensation for reconstruction of boundary walls or repair of cracks in wall and did not compensate losses caused to agricultural land, livestock and animal housing.

The officials of the Provincial Relief Commission, however, said that the government could not compensate losses suffered by all people because it did not have financial resources to support such a large number of affected people.

The initially compiled data reflected that 40,000 people had been affected by the flood but the actual number of the affected people is said to be much higher in view of the losses caused to livelihood and public health.

The provincial government has announced to undertake development works worth over Rs24 billion in the areas affected by the Oct 8 earthquake but has not put forth any composite plan to rehabilitate the people affected by floods in Peshawar, Nowshera and Charsadda.

“The government shifted its focus of attention entirely to the earthquake affected people and we were completely left out as neither the provincial nor the federal government took care of us after making announcements during the early days of floods,” said Mehdi Hussain, a resident of Misal Abad village of Nowshera district.