ABBOTTABAD, March 9: Removal of tent villages established for quake victims started in Mansehra on Thursday. The inhabitants of the tent village at Mandhiyar were shifted to their ancestral area where shelters have been provided by different relief organisations.

The government has set March 31 as the deadline for removal of tent villages in the province. The job has to be done in three phases starting on March 10. However, many people are reluctant to leave tent villages. They said that conditions in their areas were still not fit for living.

Following the Oct 8 disaster, the government and relief agencies and NGOs had set up more than 300 tent villages in the quake-hit areas of the province. —Correspondent