PESHAWAR, Oct 21: The NWFP assembly was informed on Friday that 1,610 students were buried when the Oct 8 earthquake flattened school buildings in the Mansehra district.

Education Minister Maulana Fazle Ali informed the house that at least 70 teachers had died in Mansehra alone and added that 2,166 school buildings had collapsed in the five quake-hit districts of the NWFP.

The minister said that Rs335 million were required immediately to set up an alternative school system in tents in the affected areas. He said the government was short of resources and there were not enough building to start classes. He said the department was in dire need of tents to house primary, middle and high schools in them.

He said that reconstruction of school buildings would require billions of rupees and several years, but the provincial government had neither expertise nor enough resources to get this task done.

Criticizing the role being played by President Gen Pervez Musharraf and his colleagues, Abdul Akbar Khan of the People’s Party Parliamentarians said that elected forums and provincial and federal governments had been kept out of the relief and rescue operation and reconstruction and rehabilitation programme.

He said the NWFP government needed Rs40 billion to reconstruct 2,200 school buildings, but it did not have any say in financial matters. He said the prime minister and chief minister of the NWFP were both unaware of the money-related targets.

Mr Khan said that President Musharraf and his close associates were dealing with everything while the elected prime minister and his cabinet didn’t know much about the decision-making process in Islamabad.

He asked who would disburse the foreign aid among the quake victims and what would be the criterion for that.

He called upon the provincial government to take up the issue with Islamabad. Otherwise, he warned, the province would get nothing.

He said that apart from schools, colleges, hospitals and government offices the provincial government needed Rs100 billion for restoration and development of its infrastructure across the quake-hit zone.

Bashir Ahmed Bilour of the Awami National Party said that Pakistan had been turned into a ‘one-man-show’ state. “The government’s measures smack of its political design of replacing the parliamentary system with the presidential form of governance,” he observed.

He said that the centre was amassing everything in the name of quake-related devastation in the NWFP. “The rulers don’t have confidence in elected forums and elected government,” he added.

Aftab Shabir, a woman MPA from the quake-hit Mansehra district, gave a bleak picture of the government’s performance in the affected areas.

The social sector, she said, had responded to the quake-hit areas and affected people, but the government had failed.

“Army officials do not consult people’s representatives, who know much about the areas, people and their needs,” she complained. Referring to a make-shift hospital set up in the Boys College Mansehra, she said the hospital had a capacity of 250 patients, but over 1,000 patients were lying in the building.

The MPA quoted a doctor as telling her that most of those patients had not even been provided with food.

Information minister told the house that the army was conducting the relief and rescue operation because it had the required training and equipment to deal with the disaster.

Health Minister Inyatullah said the government had released Rs80 million for the purchase of medicines.

Food Minister Fazle Rabbani and MPAs Iftikhar Jhagra and Anwar Kamal Khan also spoke.