KARACHI: President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday called for involving local people in the rehabilitation work being carried out in Sindh in the wake of unprecedented downpour of last year.
During a review meeting on floods and rehabilitation work here at Bilawal House he has also directed that the first phase of the rehabilitation work be expedited and efforts be geared up in this regard.
Chairman Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq and other senior ministers and officials attended the meeting.
It was informed during the meeting that the government has injected more than Rs12.889 billion to partner banks, UBL and HBL, to provide relief to the flood affected people in the province and around 1.2 million heads of families have received Rs 10,000 each in 16 calamity affected districts of Sindh till date.
The president was informed that the Sindh government has also sanctioned and released funds amounting to Rs 43.572 million equivalent to $ 500,000 for Cash Transfer Scheme on account of financial assistance specially for financing the Pakistan Card for Umerkot District, during Current Financial Year 2011-12. This sanction has been made from the grant made by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation USA.
The meeting was briefed that the “Early Recovery Phase” has started from January 1, 2012 which includes intervention in eight sectors/clusters that include health, education, water and sanitation, nutrition, food security, shelter and community infrastructure.
It was informed that multi-sectoral Damage Needs Assessment exercise was conducted for “Revised Flash Appeal” (RFA) worth $ 439.8 million. It was told that RFA has been launched on 21 February and Canada is the first country to respond to this appeal.
Regarding the rehabilitation work, it was told that about 97 per cent of the total area has been evacuated from the rain water and efforts were underway to dewater the remaining small pockets.
The meeting was informed that according to the revised project of construction of Rural Access Roads with the assistance of Japanese, 328 km of road construction has been approved and the work on 221 km was in progress.
The chief minister briefed the president on the progress regarding his earlier directives to appoint a monitoring committee to supervise the work pertaining to reclaiming the historical old drainage channels.
Senior Minister Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq informed the meeting that USAID has announced to rebuild around 200 schools that were damaged due to floods. UNICEF has also committed to undertake construction of 600 temporary schools out of which 50 have been completed. Similarly, Iran will rebuild 61 schools in rain hit area.
The President appreciated the assistance of USAID and UNICEF in the education sector. He also welcomed British assistance in the education sector especially the initiatives such as Education Fund for Sindh.