Only 62 percent pledged sum received from donor countries: NDMA chief gives details of flood relief work

Only 62 percent of the pledges have so far been materialised by the international community and donors announced to support Pakistan government's early recovery plan for the people affected by floods in the country. This was stated by the Chairman of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmed (Retd), while addressing a press conference here on Saturday.
He said that the Authority has not yet received about 38 percent of the total pledges. He said that Pakistan, after the floods, had appealed to the donor countries to provide nearly $2 billion for relief and early recovery plan of the flood affectees, but after passage of six months the international community has only provided 62 percent of the total pledges.
The government, he said, has issued total 1,475,247 Watan Cards and total amount of Rs 27,956,505,262 has been disbursed among the flood affected persons. He said that the government distributed 608,824 Watan cards in Punjab and an amount of Rs 11,966,034,234. In Sindh, 553,096 Watan Cards have been processed with a total disbursement of Rs 10,086,363,450.
In KP 198,408 Watan Cards have been processed and Rs 3,845,856,591 has been disbursed, whereas 101,700 Watan cards have been processed in Balochistan and Rs 1,811,622,486 has been disbursed. In AJ&K, 9,961 Watan Cards have been processed and Rs 185,412,500 has been disbursed. In the case of Gilgit Baltistan, 3,258 Watan cards have been processed and Rs 61,216,000 disbursed.
Nadeem said that last year Pakistan experienced the worst disaster in its history as the torrential waters swept across major parts of Pakistan. The floods affected over 2.4 million hectares of land and due to co-ordinated efforts of NDMA and other partners currently only 236889 acres of land is submerged.
He said that all flood affectees in Punjab and KP have returned to their homes while in Sindh 95 percent and in Balochistan 84 percent affectees have returned to their homes. In aggregate, there were total 5928 camps, housing 3,024,432 affected people, but currently only 115 camps are left with only 123,008 people living in them with a 96 percent aggregate repatriation ratio, Nadeem added.