MUZAFFARABAD: As the fourth anniversary of earthquake that ravaged Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and the Northern Areas in 2005 approaches, government functionaries are turning their attention to reconstruction and rehabilitation-related issues yet again. Their diligence, though an annual occurrence for the past four years, has had little effect: the master plans for most towns, including the state capital Muzaffarabad, and two major towns Bagh and Rawalakot, have yet to be implemented.

Initial urban development plans in the wake of the earthquake were presented in the form of the Muzaffarabad City Development Project (MCDP), Bagh City Development Project (BCDP), and Rawalakot City Development Project (RCDP).

Last year, on the third anniversary of earthquake, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani was scheduled to visit Muzaffarabad, but he did not appear owing to bad weather forecasts and engagements in Islamabad. At the time, then federal minister for Kashmir affairs Qamar Zaman Kaira represented the premier and performed the long-awaited groundbreaking of the US$ 361 million MCDP and Rs 2 billion Muzaffarabad-Athmuqam road. He also announced that reconstruction projects in two other affected AJK towns – Bagh and Rawalakot – would also be initiated soon. Kaira also declared the establishment of a medical college and a women's university in Muzaffarabad. Of all these announcements, only the Muzaffarabad-Athmuqam road project has been initiated over the past one year.

The failure to rehabilitate Muzaffarabad traces its history back to 2005. At the international donors conference in Islamabad in November 2005, the Chinese government pledged a Preferential Buyers' Credit through its EXIM-Bank – a soft loan with a 1.5 per cent interest rate – for the reconstruction of Muzaffarabad. A loan agreement was signed between Islamabad and Beijing in a follow up to that commitment.

In September 2007, the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) and two Chinese companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding and announced that the groundbreaking of some of the packages under the Rs 21.356 billion MCDP would be performed on October 8, 2007. On this day, too, nothing was initiated due to a disagreement with the Chinese companies about the ratio of overhead charges. The Chinese firms had been demanding more than 30 per cent of total credit as overhead charges, which according to official sources meant that the Chinese assistance would practically scale down to a sizeable extent.

Well into 2009, there are few prospects for Muzaffarabad’s rehabilitation. Though lately the ratio of overhead charges has been lowered to 26 per cent and the Chinese companies have also started mobilising their workers to Muzaffarabad, there are bound to be problems when the companies begin submitting invoices.

For example, according to a credible official source, the Chinese are demanding Rs 270 million for a one-kilometre-long strip of road, namely Tahli Mandi Road, along the right bank of River Neelum in Muzaffarabad. The highest per kilometre cost of any road project in AJK is Rs 40 million. If the abovementioned rate is approved, many questions will be raised about how the loan is actually being spent on the ground.

Tahli Mandi road and a shopping complex on the site of old district courts along Sultani Masjid are the two pilot projects under the MCDP that officials say are likely to see groundbreaking on October 8 this year – hardly enough to allow residents to move decisively beyond the tragedy.

Initially, separate allocations of Rs 7 billion and Rs 8 billion were pledged for BCDP and RCDP, but now Rs 361 million is allocated to be apportioned in the three towns. Despite the budget cuts, officials stress no important scheme under the MCDP has been shelved.

However genuine the reasons may be behind delay in the implementation of the MCDP, it has added to the miseries of the residents of this town who are sceptical that the project will commence any time soon.

‘They make commitments on each anniversary but their announcements evaporate the very next morning,’ says Khalid Mahmood, a survivor from the worst-hit Khawaja Mohalla of Muzaffarabad.

Like Mahmood’s, there are hundreds of families in the central part of Muzaffarabad still living in shabby buildings because they do not know what the fate of their area will be under the proposed master planning. Had there been a clear policy, many families would have raised their own abode by now, they say. Waiting for the execution of MCDP, they remain in limbo.

According to initial plans, it was announced that six satellite towns on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad would be developed to resolve the housing problem. These towns are also part of the MCDP which is yet to be implemeted. The number of these towns has now been brought down to three. Had these been developed earlier, many of the housing woes of survivors would have been addressed by now.

Khawaja Farooq Ahmed, a former minister who was thrice elected as a legislative assembly member from Muzaffarabad, laments that the capital has not received as much attention as it should have.

‘Whatever development we see in this town is the courtesy of some Islamic countries,’ says Ahmed, referring to the state of the art Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan Hospital as well as the mega district headquarters complex built by the Turkish government. ‘As far as the ERRA is concerned, it has miserably failed to alleviate the sufferings of survivors. It has done nothing except squandering time on so-called planning and money on extravagance,’ he alleges.

Ahmed’s views about the reconstruction authority are common in the region. Mahmood Baig, a Muzaffarabad-based lawyer, says, ‘the authority has become a source of employment for the kith and kin of anybody who is somebody in this land of the pure. It is frittering away the funds meant for our rehabilitation on its huge administrative
infrastructure, exorbitant salary packages, perks, privileges and luxuries.’

A senior government official also admits that the huge setup and benefits of ERRA have angered the survivors who believe it’s their money being dissipated by the authority. The official also points out that since the planning phase is complete and the execution phase is in progress, there is no need for ERRA to retain such a huge setup.

Recently, a National Assembly standing committee on cabinet in its meeting expressed profound concerns over what it termed as the delay by ERRA in reconstruction of the infrastructure, especially school buildings in the earthquake-hit areas.

After four years, ERRA can claim little more than completing the survey of 610,246 houses damaged or destroyed and paying financial compensation to the relatives of the dead and the maimed. The authority, however, has failed to provide survivors with alternate abodes or resources and has banked largely on foreign agencies, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, to provide shelter.

ERRA itself admits that of the 13,000 reconstruction and rehabilitation projects planned in the past four years, only 3,394 have been completed, 4,651are under implementation, and 3,006 are yet to be given final shape.

Residents of Muzaffarabad in particular also complain that since ERRA officials are based in Islamabad they tend to think that everything is fine in the affected areas. Of late, almost all local papers have been replete with stories about worst kind of corruption and favouritism in MRDA, one of the authority’s projects, but no action has been taken.

But while there are many genuine complaints against ERRA, the AJK government also shares the blame for delaying several projects by shirking its responsibilities, particularly with regard to acquisition of land. ‘Honestly speaking, the AJK rulers are also indifferent. They just make tall claims instead of taking practical steps,’ says Saad Matin, a student.

Take, for example, the case of King Abdullah University in Chattar Klas. As yet, the government has not been able to give possession of the entire land to the concerned party. So far 778 only out of 1,000 kanals have been acquired, as temporary shelters have been raised on the property by the owners in a bid to claim more compensation. Similarly, land for construction of 27 directorates has not been acquired by the government as yet. And in yet another instance, a two-storey shopping mall built by the Turkish as part of the district headquarters complex has been gathering dust for the past six months as the government has not decide upon its usage.

In other respects too, the rehabilitations plans are wanting. Under the MCDP, 2,866 educational institutions were scheduled to be built. Four years down the lane, only 237 are complete. Officials says over 1,600 are in process, but cite various reasons for the
delay.

It is not surprising, then, that the people of Muzaffarabad are losing patience with the government and its promises. Zahid Amin, a political activist and former head of Development Authority Muzaffarabad (DAM), warns that locals can not tolerate more false promises regarding the reconstruction. As he puts it, ‘now they want to see some work on the ground.’

With additional reporting by Ahmad Hassan in Islamabad.