KARACHI, Sep 08 (APP): Sindh Caretaker Minister for Finance, Revenue and Planning and Development, Muhammad Younus Dagha, on Friday, stressing on expediting reconstruction of houses damaged in floods of 2022 directed to release Rs.20 billion every month in the regard.
The minister, while chairing a meeting in this regard, expressed dissatisfaction over the pace of work and said that it would take many years to complete the work at this pace, which would not only increase hardships of the affected people but reconstruction cost might also increase many fold, said a press release.
He directed the project director and the partner NGOs to ensure the opening of at least 100,000 bank accounts of flood victims every month while an amount of Rs.20 billion should be released monthly so that the speed of reconstruction work could be accelerated and the construction of houses be completed in the shortest possible time.
The caretaker minister instructed deputy commissioners concerned to complete the process of issuing ownership documents of the newly constructed houses to the residents at the earliest.
Younus Dagha observed that funds were available to ensure the reconstruction of 100,000 houses every month. However, to maintain this pace in the next year, negotiations should be held with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Islamic Development Bank so that the issue of lack of funds could be dealt with.
The provincial minister was told that about 2.1 million houses were destroyed in the 2022 floods in Sindh, of which construction work has been started on 130,000 houses while Rs.10.306 billion have been transferred to bank accounts of the flood victims but slow pace of opening bank accounts was the major obstacle in the reconstruction work.
On which the caretaker minister directed that heads of the relevant banks should be sensitized about the importance of the project and asked to encourage their branch officials to expeditethe opening of the accounts. The meeting also decided to engage more banks in the process.
The meeting was briefed that during the flood of 2022, the damage to houses and infrastructure in Sindh was estimated at $ 5.5 billion while more than Rs.425.843 billion were required for reconstruction of the damaged houses.
The amount of funds that have been received so far for the reconstruction of house was Rs.190 billion among them the World Bank has pledged $ 500 million (around Rs.140 billion) and the Sindh government has pledged loans of Rs.50 billion while there was a funding gap of over Rs.244 billion, the meeting was told.
Currently, five NGOs- SRSO, SAFWCO, HANDS, TRDP and NRSP- were working in 20 flood-affected districts and they have assured full assistance for gearing up the reconstruction work, the meeting was informed.
