SC orders completion of quake-hit schools in KPK by June 2022

The Supreme Court (SC) has instructed the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) to complete the construction of schools destroyed in the 2005 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa earthquake by June 2022, Aaj News reported on Tuesday.

A three-member apex bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed, conducted the hearing of a suo-moto case regarding the plight of government schools in the province.

During the hearing, CJP Gulzar Ahmed expressed annoyance over delay in the reconstruction process. He told the ERRA chief: “Had your children been deprived of education, these projects would have been completed way back.”

ERRA Chairman Lieutenant-General Akhtar Nawaz replied that only 3,000 out of 14,000 projects are yet to be completed. “Education and health have always been our top priority.”

Reconstruction in quake-hit areas in KP: SC directs ERRA chief to file report

The court also sought details of the remaining projects. “If education and health were your top priority, not even a single project would have been incomplete. Schools and hospitals in areas affected by the earthquake should have been built within a year,” the CJP stated.

The court said that the government’s negligence has turned education into a business. “The college fee, back then, was just Rs800. Today, the school fee for toddlers is not less than Rs30,000. It is the state’s responsibility to provide free education to everyone.”

The court, subsequently, summoned a detailed report on schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa along with details of its children and teachers and adjourned the hearing for a month.

Earlier, the top court directed the ERRA chairman to file a comprehensive report on the reconstruction and development in earthquake-devastated areas in KPK.

The chief justice inquired what the ERRA had been doing since its establishment and asked why 540 schools razed in the earthquake, could not be reconstructed till now, and where the money received in donation was spent.

Bureaucracy criticized: SC orders to make earthquake-devastated schools in KP functional

Advocate General KP said that the provincial government in two months had reconstructed 148 schools and had made them functional.

The chief justice remarked what the KP government had been doing in the last 16 years? He asked how many children gave up studies due to the non-availability of the school buildings.

The chief justice further said they were aware of what kind of school buildings have been constructed, adding it seems would endanger the lives of the teachers and the children.

He said the level of corruption in the KP is such that its government could not deliver for the public.