KARACHI: Sindh Chief Secretary Dr Muhammad Sohail Rajput has said that the flood-affected people will start receiving money from Feb 8 for the reconstruction of their houses.

He said this while speaking at a workshop organised by the Sindh People’s Housing Foundation (SPHF) regarding construction of houses for flood-hit people.

World Bank Senior Social Development Specialist Kamran Akbar, SPHF chief executive Khalid Mehmood Sheikh, various NGOs, implementation partners of the Sindh government, experts and others participated in the workshop.

Speaking at the event, Dr Rajput said that the Sindh government had created the SPHF — a Section 42 company — to build houses for the flood-affected people.

He said that the company had an independent board of directors.

He said that the houses would be constructed in collaboration with implementation partners such as National Rural Support Programme (NRSP), Sindh Rural Support Organisation (SRSO), Thardeep Rural Development Programme (TRDP), SAFCO Support Foundation and HANDS.

“This is not only a project to build houses, but it will also lead to social uplift of the people as the Sindh government will also provide people with the title documents of the land,” said the province’s top bureaucrat.

He further said that a survey had been completed, according to which 2.058 million houses had been partially or completely damaged by rains and floods in the province.

He also informed the participants that the World Bank had committed $500 million for the housing project, Sindh government was giving $250m while the federal government had also promised to provide equal contribution of $250m.

The chief secretary further said that post-donors conference would be held in Karachi on Feb 8, where the participants would be briefed about the project. He added that the affected people would start getting money from February 8 for the construction of houses.

“Such houses will be constructed as per multi-hazard resilient standards,” he said.

Dr Rajput further said that Rs300,000 would be given for completely damaged houses in instalments and Rs50,000 for partially damaged houses and the implementation partner would ensure the completion of the construction of the houses as per the design approved by the Sindh government.

During the workshop, various NGOs and construction experts and architects presented models of a low-cost house.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2023