Calamity-hit status only for villages

Source: Dawn

Date: 27 Aug, 2010

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkwa government has decided to declare villages badly affected by the flash floods as calamity-hit area rather than an entire district.

A senior official told Dawn on Thursday that “the government has decided to extend the facility only to those areas where it is needed”.

According to the official the provincial Revenue and Estate Department has been directed to furnish details of the damaged public and private

properties on the basis of revenue record maintained for each village.

“Once the details are furnished, the government will notify the areas as calamity-hit, a status which can offer waver of certain local taxes as a

relief to the flood affected households,” said the official.

Data collected by the revenue staff would also be used to compensate affected people for the damage caused to their houses by the floods, he said.

Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) had categorised the entire province into three catego-ries keeping in view the magnitude of

damages the floods had caused in the districts.

Severely affected districts included Charsadda, Dera Ismail Khan, Dir Lower, Dir Upper, Nowshera, Peshawar, Shangla, Swat, Tank and Kohistan.

Similarly, the medium affected districts consist of Bannu, Battagram, Chitral, Karak, Kohat, Lakki, Malakand, Mansehra and Swabi. Bunair,

Hangu, Haripur, Mardan and Abbottabad had been included in the least affected category.

For more details: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/calamityhit-status-only-for-villages-780