ISLAMABAD, Feb 20: The Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) will present a comprehensive housing plan along with the schedule for payment of instalments to the prime minister within 10 days.
This was decided in the third meeting of the Erra Council held at the Prime Minister’s House with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in the chair.
The prime minister had asked Erra to submit a plan for resettlement of people in the earthquake-affected areas, focusing on housing policy and restoration of health and education facilities so that construction activities could be initiated immediately.
The prime minister was informed that Erra had received reports of seismic surveys conducted by Norwegian, Chinese, and Turkish teams.
However, Erra had tasked Nespak to re-evaluate these surveys. Actual implementation of the Erra’s housing policy would begin after the completion of the re-evaluation.
The meeting was also informed that disbursement of housing and livelihood grants was being conducted through commercial banks and the banks had been directed to facilitate opening of bank accounts without the condition of CNIC and without any cost to the account holders in the quake-hit areas. They had also been asked not to charge the government any transaction cost and provide mobile banking facilities in remote areas. The earthquake survivors could also open accounts in post offices in their respective areas.
The prime minister ordered the provincial governments to expedite the delivery of remaining instalments for the reconstruction of damaged houses. An amount of Rs25,000 had been paid to the survivors. The next installment of Rs75,000 would be paid by early March, followed by two more installments amounting to Rs25,000 and Rs50,000 each, which would be paid after house surveys by designated officers to ascertain that designs wee in accordance with the government’s building codes to make the houses immune to earthquakes.
The prime minister emphasized the need for coordination between the AJK and NWFP governments, Army and the Erra.
The prime minister said that while Erra was the coordinating agency for the reconstruction and rehabilitation process, the actual implementation work would be carried out by the governments of the AJK and the NWFP.
Provincial governments, he said, should increase their share in the implementation of the rehabilitation work, the prime minister said.
The prime minister also emphasized the need to expedite the sponsorship programme. Erra, he said, should follow up sponsorship offers and facilitate sponsors for realization of their offers into actual ground work. He also asked them to coordinate with banks for preparation of soft loan packages to rebuild commercial enterprises.
According to the Erra board’s decision, the authority would follow the public procurement rules, 2004. The authority’s deputy chairman would be Erra’s principal accounting officer and have the financial and administrative powers equivalent to a secretary to the government of Pakistan.
The meeting was attended by NWFP Chief Minister Mohammad Akram Khan Durrani, Prime Minister of AJK Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat, advisor on finance Dr Salman Shah, Erra chairman Maj-Gen Altaf M. Saleem, deputy chairman Nadeem Ahmed, Chief secretary NWFP Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi and chief secretary of the AJK Kashif Murtaza.