ISLAMABAD, Nov 6: The government is considering basing its entire reconstruction plan on a ‘comprehensive soil testing and investigation’ that may lead to building Azad Kashmir’s capital Muzaffarabad slightly away from its present location.

“We are considering to start new construction instead of reconstruction”, said a senior government official. “This means that a couple of devastated towns including Muzaffarabad may be moved to new but safer locations instead of existing ones which have been badly affected”, he added.

A meeting of government and donor agencies, including newly established Relief and Reconstruction Authority (RRA), the Planning Commission, UN agencies, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), will be held on Monday to finalise basic principles for the reconstruction phase.

The official said there was no proposal to shift AJK’s capital to another city as was being discussed in some political circles but the capital could be moved two to three kilometres away if its existing location was found risky.

However, he said such a proposal could be discussed by the Azad Kashmir Council or the National Economic Council and had nothing to do with coordination meetings with international donors’ community.

Another official said the RRA led by Lt-Gen Mohammad Zubair was studying the Tokyo reconstruction plan to see if the techniques used in reconstruction of Tokyo could be used in Pakistan.

The idea is to convert this devastation into an opportunity to build new model cities on most modern lines by giving due consideration to all preventive measures because the country cannot afford similar casualties in future.

The official said there were two opinions on reconstruction efforts and the Monday meeting would finalize basic principles in this regard which would be presented in the international donors conference on November 19.

He said some quarters suggested that Pakistan should build new cities keeping in mind future requirements instead of wasting time on patchwork and removal of millions of tons of rubble at the old locations.

On the other hand, he said, there was an opinion that establishment of new cities may become even more expensive and time consuming option. This section believed that Pakistan should immediately start repair and reconstruction of the damaged infrastructure to bring life to the normalcy again.

He said decisions on “reconstruction or new construction” and on use of earthquake-prone technologies would lead to finalization of the overall reconstruction cost that may be quite different from $10-12 billion estimates put forward by the Planning Commission.