ISLAMABAD, April 10 The government formed a committee on Friday to recommend ways to resettling about 7,000 people displaced by the Mangla dam raising project in Azad Kashmir.

About 50,000 people displaced in Mirpur, Todyal, Chak Sawari and adjacent areas have already been compensated. But it was later noticed that another 7,000 people were demanding compensation in the form of plots and cash. Some of these people are believed to be extended families of those who have been compensated.

The problem the government now faces is that it cannot fill the larger reservoir if people continue to refuse to leave the area.

The decision to form the three-member committee was taken at a meeting presided over by Water and Power Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf. It was attended by AJK President Raja Zulqarnain Khan, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, Wapda chairman Shakeel Durrani, additional chief secretary of AJK and the commissioner of Mangla dam affairs.

The committee has been asked to submit its recommendations within seven days.

Mr Ashraf told the meeting that the federal government and Wapda would settle genuine claims and matters relating to resettlement would be addressed by the committee.

The meeting also discussed civic amenities in new towns being developed by Wapda for the affected people.

Wapda chairman said the dam raising project would be completed by June 30 this year, increasing the storage capacity of the reservoir by 30 feet, with an additional 2.9 million acre feet of water and an additional power generation of 644 Gigawatt hours (GWh) a year.

The test filling of the dam will begin in July.

According to sources, the AJK president raised a number of issues at the meeting and said he was not satisfied with the way Wapda was handling the compensation issue.

He was of the view that people of the area had lost their source of income and the compensation package did not include any income rehabilitation measure. He also said that many genuine claims were still pending.

Qamar Zaman Kaira, who also holds the portfolio of Kashmir and Northern Areas, stressed the need for timely implementation of decisions taken to rehabilitate the affected people.

Experts believe that the Mangla resettlement work undertaken at the time of construction of the dam in the 1960s was one of the largest of its kind in the world at that time. About 81,000 people were relocated, 32,900 houses replaced and 88,000 acres of land acquired. Six towns and 255 villages were affected.