July 01, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 15, 1428

PESHAWAR, June 30: The provincial general secretary of the Awami National Party, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, has called upon the government to pay adequate compensation to those affected by heavy rains and floods in the NWFP.

The ANP leader said that a large number of people in the NWFP and adjacent tribal areas had been hit by recent floods and rains while hundreds of houses and shops had collapsed and standing crops on thousands of acres destroyed.

In a press statement on Saturday, he said floodwaters had inundated dozens of villages causing displacement of people on a large scale.

He said that relief work initiated by the government was slow and insufficient.

He urged the provincial and federal governments to announce a special grant for relief activities and grant the calamity-hit status for the affected areas and added that agriculture tax, water rate and other taxes should be waived in those areas.

He also appealed to his party workers to participate in relief activities.—Bureau