KHYBER: Afridi Relief Committee (ARC), a representative body of all seven Bara tribes, has demanded of the government to change the SOPs for carrying out the survey of the militancy-hit properties of tribesmen, and consider all the partially-damaged houses as fully damaged as these could not be repaired since 2014 due to persistent delay in execution of the survey.

The demand was made at a meeting held in Bara the other day.

The participants said so far only 10,000 families had been compensated against the damage caused to their houses by militancy from 2005 to 2014, and the survey too could not be completed in most parts of Bara due to unspecified reasons.

They said the government departments concerned had in their own SOPs pledged to compensate at least 10,000 damaged houses every year but failed to honour their own commitment.

They said thousands of the affected houses were yet to be surveyed and the owners compensated since the return of all the internally displaced families in 2014.

The relief committee members said a large number of affected families in Bara and Tirah had reconstructed their fully and partially-damaged houses due to constant delay in survey of the damaged houses.

The government provides Rs400,000 to the owner of the fully damaged house and Rs160.000 for the partially damaged one.

Demanding immediate start of the survey, the ARC members demanded full payment of Rs400,000 to the owners of all the partially-damaged houses.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2020