July 13, 2006

Muzaffarabad town certainly looks cleaner nine months after the earthquake. The debris is gone, the large tent villages have been dismantled, the shops rebuilt and the bazaars are bustling with activity. It’s back to business as usual. Or is it?

A superficial drive around town does not reveal the true picture, it seems. “We are facing many problems –– there has been no reconstruction of houses as yet and people are forced to live in rented homes, in tents or with their relatives. They might have cleaned up all the main roads but take a look at the side streets. They are asking us for money to clear the debris there. Where has all the money gone that the government was raising?” asks Zeeshan Naqash, a local journalist.

So far, it seems that reconstruction activities have been delayed by the government because the Pakistan Army has not yet completed its survey of damaged homes. The survey itself is a complicated procedure involving multiple forms and scanning by NADRA.

The federally constituted Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) is in charge of the reconstruction process and all the money that has been raised by the government is now with them (no one knows exactly how large this fund is!).

With the help of the Pakistan Army and local NGOs they are planning to constitute mobile training teams who will then train local construction workers on how to make earthquake resistant homes (technology imported from Nepal). Only those planning to make cement houses with appropriate earthquake resistant design are eligible for the second installment of the Rs 75,000 housing grant from the government, for each destroyed house.

“It is really criminal that only those rebuilding with cement will be allowed the money. Cement is very expensive, plus we are talking about a figure of around 600,000 houses that have to be rebuilt in this region. There is just not enough cement for this kind of massive construction,” says an anonymous source in the UN.

The first installment of Rs25,000 has already been given out to affected families, but the earthquake victims say they have used up all that money to pay for daily expenditures. “We needed the money to pay for school fees and for milk, groceries etc. How could we have saved that for house construction,” says Kulsoom Ali, a resident of Muzaffarabad.

The government is planning to give out the third installment of Rs75,000 and the fourth and last installment of Rs25,000 providing that the families have followed appropriate design in the reconstruction of their houses.

As of July 1, the mobile teams have started their training of construction workers. But unfortunately, the monsoon season has started with rains almost every other day, making construction activities difficult. “At this rate, they will not complete reconstruction before winter. We are worried about what will happen to the people without proper shelters when the snow starts falling in December. CGI sheets are no longer freely available and relief activities have almost come to an end,” adds the UN source.

Already, those who have returned to their homes from the dismantled camps are having to live in makeshift accommodation. Those who had returned earlier were somewhat luckier, since they got help from NGOs to make proper shelters. There was a plan to make urban transition shelters by some NGOs but they were not successful in raising enough money to do this in Muzaffarabad and Balakot. The destroyed town of Balakot will be shifted to nearby Bakrial, but this will take at least three to five years.

The citizens of Muzaffarabad are impatient and angry. “There is no proper policy. Who is making the policies and where is the master plan for Muzaffarabad city? It seems that the government has placed the rehabilitation process on the back burner. Even the far flung areas have been better supported than the citizens of Muzaffarabad,” adds Malik Tahir, another local journalist.

The NGOs, it appears, have concentrated their activities on the more remote villages of Muzaffarabad district. International NGOs like Merlin, ICRC, Oxfam and Mercy Corps are working in Neelam and Jhelum valleys on restoring rural water supply systems and providing basic health care. Some are also distributing new livestock, seeds and fertilisers. The UNDP is also planning to work on livelihood restoration activities in Muzaffarabad and Balakot tehsils.

In Muzaffarabad’s inner city, however, the situation remains grim. “There are hardly any NGOs working here –– believe me, many people are still living in tents outside their destroyed homes. And in this heat, life in a tent is almost unbearable. They are not even allowing us to build temporary shelters. They won’t even give us construction materials so we can start building our homes. Even those homes which are still standing, I would say that 60 per cent are badly damaged and not worth living in”, complains Malik Tahir.

It appears that there is a big communication gap between the federal government and the local residents of Muzaffarabad. There is just not enough information going around.

“The federal government is giving us step-motherly treatment,” complain most of the local journalists living in Muzaffarabad, the best source of information. There are some, however, who feel that the whole city has become dependent on aid and handouts and that it is time people started getting back on their own two feet.

“All this aid has turned us into beggars,” said one disgusted resident of the city. Some members of the Pakistan army seem to agree. “When we were giving out the initial cheques for Rs 25,000, I would say that almost one quarter of the claimants were fake. Imagine what will happen when it comes to distributing the second installment of 75,000. It will be chaos,” says one major in the Pakistan Army who wishes to remain anonymous.

There also appear to be no proper policies concerning the reconstruction of public infrastructure. Some people are convinced that there is no money earmarked for this work. According to the ERRA’s plan, however, the District Reconstruction Units (DRU) will be responsible for the rebuilding of public infrastructure in their districts.

However, when one visits these units, one finds a bunch of government officials sipping tea and blaming each other for the current messy situation. It appears that no one wants to take responsibility for what is happening and in a few months’ time, winter will be upon the people, and another crisis will be on our hands.

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