Dera Ismail Khan: Drowned and forgotten?

Author: APP

Hundreds of families from DI.Khan district whose houses were washed away in flash floods in 2022 appeal to newly elected Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ali Amin Gandapur for the payment of approved compensation as many flood affectees are yet to get the compensation money announced by the then provincial government.

The government had announced Rs400,000 for each house destroyed during flash floods in 2022 and Rs160,000 each for families whose houses were partially damaged, but many displaced families are still without money and forced to spend the winter in miserable conditions.

Dera Ismail Khan District was one of the worst flood affected areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and over 75,000 houses were destroyed and damaged.

Figures show that the over 34,000 houses were completely destroyed while 41000 others partially damaged.

However, after two years many of these flood affectees are still waiting for government assistance while many others have even not been included in the survey, depriving them of aid.

The flood affectees said that they couldn’t rebuild their houses as the Provincial Disaster Management Authority was yet o transfer the compensation amount to their accounts.

“Atleast two years have passed since the provincial government announced compensation for flood victims to rebuild their houses but we have not even received a penny yet,” one of the flood affectee Qaisera bibi from village Haji Mora said.

“We have been living in a rented house for the past two years in the hope that the money promised by the government will come soon,” Imdad Hussain another flood affectee said.

A local social activist and Chairman of Village council Haji Mora Tanveer Abbas Mehdi, while giving the details said that our village was one the most affected area of the district, two years have passed since the flood, there are many families in our village whose houses have been completely destroyed, but till today they could not get the aid announced by the government.

Flood affectees appealed to Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ali Amin Gandapur to take strict action and give directions to the authorities to release the compensation money to deserving people who have been deprived of government assistant.

They urged the Chief Minister to put an end to this discriminatory policy of compensation to the flood affectees by ensuring a fair and equitable distribution of flood compensation.