Smeda, PDMA sign MoU for various projects worth Rs 251 million

Small & Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) on Saturday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) for execution of legal and economic empowerment project worth Rs 251 million in more than 10 worst flood affected districts of the province.
Deputy General Manager Smeda, Raja Hasnain Javed and Director General, PDMA, Shakeel Qadir Khan formally signed the agreement in a ceremony held at PDMA office. The project would provide opportunities of development and bring prosperity in the flood- affected district, said Hasnain while explaining the aims and objective of the project.
He said that the early flood-affected community project had so far launched in 30 districts of the country, now they were also going to execute in more than 10 worst flood-hit districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Shangla, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohistan, Peshawar, Charssada, Swat, Nowshera, Dir Upper, & Lower and Tank.
The basic purpose was to improve rural economy hit by floods in agriculture and livestock sector, he maintained. Smeda Deputy GM explained that the programme would be focused on three major components, including agriculture, livestock, and craft. Under the 18-month programme, he added that the emphasis would be to enhance capacity building of farmers, bring improvement in service delivery, and establishment of common facility centres for entrepreneurs at their localities, which could be helpful to revive economic activities.
The programme will also assist to provide financial grant to farmers to improve livelihood and other inputs in the economic generation activities in their respective areas, he maintained. He informed that the project would offer its support in setting up of Business Support Centres (BSCs) in every flood-affected districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to co-ordinate livelihood restoration and rehabilitation activities.
The project will not only provide business development support to the farmers, craftsmen, micro entrepreneurs and co-operative projects in restoration of businesses and livelihoods but would also assist in the capacity building of NGOs and social enterprises, he concluded. The DG PDMA presently engaged in the relief and rehabilitation of flood-affected areas and communities in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province also spoke on the occasion.