Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: FATA Disaster Management Authority (FDMA) has disbursed Rs. 14.36 billion for the renovation of the damaged houses, affected in the military operation against terrorists in the region.

FDMA spokesperson, Ihsan Dawar told Daily Times that almost 83,100 houses were affected during the operation in the war-torn area.

He said that out of total damaged houses, the South Waziristan tribal district was the most affected region, where the number of damaged houses rose to 50,000.

Another12,000 houses were damaged in North Waziristan, 9,000 in Orakzai tribal district, 8,000 in Khyber and 4,500 in Kurram, where the process of survey is still underway.

The government has released Rs. 14 billion in compensation of 45,000 damaged houses and the affected people have been given cheques, he said.

To compensate more people, “The survey teams are doing their job in South and North Waziristan tribal districts, Kurram, Orakzai and Khyber areas,” the spokesperson added.

He further said that the repatriation process of Temporarily Dislocated Persons (TDPs) is also underway, with families of Khyber and Orakzai tribal districts are going back to their homes. The repatriation of remaining families of North and South Waziristan would start soon.

“At least 15,000 TDPs of North Waziristan are yet to be returned to their hometown. Another 800 families of Khyber will return to their homes in the near future,” he informed.

He said that still thousands of displaced people belonging from South Waziristan, Khyber and Orakzai tribal districts could not return to their homes because of the delay in the registration process.

Earlier this year, Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) Qamar Bajwa directed the officials concerned that the TDPs of the tribal region can now use computerised national identity cards (CNICs) as the documents of identifications for payments of compensation. But even this could not help expediting the repatriation process.

Owing to their reservations, the displaced families from North Waziristan tribal district staged a protest in Peshawar the other day, alleging unnecessary delay in compensation to them. The protestors asked the governor to take the corrective measures; otherwise a protest would be staged in Islamabad.

They also talked about the plight of health and educational institutions in the tribal districts and grieved that the federal government has not paid any heed to solve these issues.

Published in Daily Times, August 16^th 2018.