August 14, 2007	Tuesday	Rajab 29, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Aug 13: A member of the National Assembly from Chitral has asked the government to waive agricultural loans extended to the farmers by the Zarai Taraqiati Bank (ZTBL), as according to him, the district is still groaning under the impact of widespread destruction wrought by natural calamities earlier this year.

“The NWFP government has declared the district calamity-hit after 75 persons were killed and 57 injured during the unprecedented snowfall and avalanches that struck the valley in April-May,” said MNA Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali while talking to Dawn here on Monday.

Besides paralysing the already poor communication infrastructure, thousands of houses, school buildings, orchards, and standing crops were destroyed or partially damaged.

The federal government has sanctioned Rs10.35 million as compensation for those killed and injured during the disaster while the NWFP government had promised to provide a matching amount to the affected people.

However, people of the district say that the compensation amount did not cover damages and destruction to crops, cattle, houses and other valuables which had cost the farmers millions of rupees. The population of whole the district has been affected in one way or the other by the natural calamity and the affected people are unable to return the agricultural loans, the MNA said.

He said the federal government had recently announced to waive agricultural loans of up to Rs150,000 in Balochistan and should do the same in the case of Chitral where people owed the bank small loans ranging from Rs10,000 to Rs50,000 only.