President for involving local people in rehabilitation work

KARACHI: President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday called for involving local people in the rehabilitation work being carried out in Sindh province 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.

Those who were present during the meeting included Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq, Senior Minister for Education and Literacy, Manzoor Hussain Wassan, Minister for Home, Jam Saifullah Khan Dharejo, Minister for Irrigation, Shazia Marri, Minister for Information and Electric Power, Syed Murad Ali Shah, Minister for Finance, Syed Ali Nawaz Shah, Minister for Agriculture, Agha Siraj Khan Durrani, Minister for Local Government, Haji Muzaffar H. Shujrah, Minister for Rehabilitation, and Sharmeela Faruqui, Advisor to CM Sindh. Secretary General to the President M. Salman Faruqui and other senior officials.

It was informed during the meeting that the government has injected more than Rs. 12.889 billion to partner banks, UBL and HBL, to provide relief to the flood affected people in Sindh 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 Government of Sindh 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, Shalter 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% 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.

Chief Minister Sindh 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. The President directed that the work on reclamation of historical drainage channels for minimizing flood damage be expedited.

He also directed that Teachers Training Programs should be completed on priority in order to ensure that the children are taught by trained and capable staff. He reiterated his call to speed up training programs under the Sindh Waseel e Haq scheme in all the districts of Sindh so that the beneficiaries could set up their own small businesses and help themselves extricating from poverty trap.

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 rebuilt 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.