PESHAWAR: The Grants Review and Distribution Committee (GRDC) of the Economic Revitalisation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata (ERKF) project has approved Rs100 million grant for the rehabilitation and upgradation of the small and medium enterprises hit by terrorism and natural calamities in 23 districts of the province.

The relevant officials told Dawn that the ERKF project funded by the Multi Donor Trust Fund had received around 4,000 applications from the crisis-hit SMEs for grants from July to the first week of Oct last year and 100 of them would be selected.

They said SMEs from all districts hit by terrorism and natural calamities in the province, especially from Malakand division, had submitted applications with the project unit established under the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda).

The officials said the largest number of applications had been received from Lower Dir followed by Swat and Chitral.

They said the women entrepreneurs had taken keen interest in the project as over 200 women had applied for the grant to be distributed under the heads of rehabilitation, upgradation and cluster development.

The officials said Rs2.5 million was the maximum amount for rehabilitation, Rs2 million for upgradation and Rs10 million for cluster development.

They said a special MIS system had been adopted for the maintenance and guaranteeing of transparency in the grants distribution and that every case for grant was processed fairly.

The officials said two panels, including Documentation Review Committee and Grants Review and Decision Committee, had been formed to process the cases.

They said the first committee would review the documents and present the cases in the second committee, which having representation from both public and private sectors would decide about their approval after thorough scrutiny.

The officials said under the project’s first round, grants to the tune of Rs1.5 billion had been distributed in 1,700 SMESs of KP and Fata.

They said for the second round, Rs1.2 billion had been sanctioned for SMEs in both KP and Fata but it had been initiated in KP only.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2018