February 28, 2007	Wednesday	Safar 10, 1428

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MUZAFFARABAD, Feb 27: Earthquake survivors from landslide-prone areas on Tuesday called for provision of land for reconstruction of houses as a senior official elaborated repatriation plans for displaced persons.

Raja Mohammad Abbas said that survivors from rural areas living in camps would be repatriated to their native villages by early April to rebuild their houses. However, survivors from urban areas would not be disturbed until satellite towns were developed for them. Similarly, he said, the landless families would also be repatriated in the last phase.

He said that 635 rural families in camps had been identified as landless.

However, survivors from Narran village, located 55 kilometres northeast of here, alleged that although their whole area was vulnerable to landslides only four families from there had been listed as landless.

“The mountains in our area have developed wide cracks and reconstruction and rehabilitation is not possible there,” said survivor Altaf Hussain.

According to him, the army and NGOs had declared their area unliveable but they wondered why they hadn’t been counted among landless survivors.

He and his fellow villagers demanded that the government should appoint an impartial team to re-survey their area to verify their claims.

Mr Abbas, however, said his organisation had displayed lists of landless families in every camp and any aggrieved person could contact the revenue department for redressal.The government, he said, was also compiling the data of those landless people who had avoided living in camps.

The federal government has announced Rs75,000 for landless families, but Mr Hussain said they should be provided land for reconstruction.

“If they give us Rs75,000 then there should not be any condition to buy land in native villages because there is no habitable land in our area,” he said.