July 21, 2006	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 24, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 20: More than 20,000 families in the earthquake-hit districts of Batagram and Mansehra (Hazara) are yet to get the government announced subsidy for rebuilding their houses due to tenancy rights related complications.

The issues emerging due to the lack of consensus between the tenants and their landlords have put the houses rebuilding process in the earthquake areas on the back burner, said Kamran Akbar of the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF).

He was speaking at a function organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) here on Thursday.

Mr Akbar said issues of land ownership, land documentation and tenancy rights were still hovering around at a time when the distribution process of the housing subsidy should have been completed and people should have started rebuilding their houses as per the standards of the seismically resistant buildings.

He said the money given to the affected people to rebuild their houses could not be called compensation because houses could not be reconstructed on such a meagre amount. However, this could rightly be called ‘housing subsidy.’

He said normally governments did not announce subsidies for rebuilding houses or reconstruction after national calamities. For example Nepal, where the government announced low interest loans after a large number of houses were washed away by Tsunami. He said it was a courageous step of the government to announce subsidy for such a large number of affected families.

He said from August 20 onward, the supply of construction materials to areas laying at high altitude would be snapped due to bad weather and the lack of required road infrastructure. Jeeps would be the only means of transportation to these areas, which could bring the transportation charges on these materials beyond the affording level of a majority of the population, who are poor.

The challenge, Mr Akbar said, was the construction of 400,000 to 600,000 seismically resistant housing units before the coming winter to enable the people to get shelter and fight back the harshness of the bone-chilly weather, which remains below minus throughout the winter.

The inability of the Pakistani nation to be prepared for emergency situations and natural calamities had been exposed by the October-8 earthquake. The best option for the whole nation was to learn a lesson and be prepared for such types of situations in future.

Unfortunately, he said, road infrastructure to the quake-hit areas of high altitude was in a bad shape and could not cater for the huge demand for the supply of housing materials.

He said there were still disputes between the damage assessment teams and affected families, which were being resolved by the redressal committees at district and tehsil levels.

To a question, he said it was very difficult to come up with a mechanism to make everybody happy during the times of national disasters. He said there were a lot of complaints that the damage assessment teams had counted as one family, four or five married brothers living with their parents and families under one house. However, there were also examples in which several housing subsidy cheques were issued to just a single family.

Another dangerous trend which Mr Akbar highlighted, with concern, was the fact that the powerful earthquake had also shaken the social fabric in the affected areas.

“Before the earthquake, male members of most of the families were going abroad or to other cities of the country for jobs, leaving their kith and kin behind. But, after the earthquake, people have become more greedy and could not be trusted. So people are not taking the risk of leaving their families without male members,” he observed.

Efforts were being made to revive the pre-quake value system which was based on cooperation and mutual trust. The history of natural calamities showed that beside losses to lives and property, the value system of a nation also suffered a lot and exactly the same had happened in Kashmir and NWFP, Mr Akbar observed.