Sajid Irfan

The government has disbursed Rs19 billion among over 700,000 flood affected families across the country, with Sindh alone getting Rs11 billion, reports WealthPK.

Pleading anonymity, a representative of Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) told WealthPK that the government announced a grant of over Rs19 billion for the flood affected areas. The recent floods have wreaked havoc countrywide, inflicting a loss of above $10 billion.

The BISP official said a total of Rs19,842,525,000 was distributed among 793,701 affected families under the emergency cash assistance programme.

“As many as 466,045 flood victims have received Rs11,665,125,000 in Sindh, while Rs2,466.925,000 has been disbursed among 98,677 families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In Balochistan, 90,396 families have received Rs2,259,900,000, while an amount of Rs3,464,575,000 has been disbursed among 138,538 families in Punjab under the emergency cash assistance programme,” he added.

He further said according to the strict instructions by federal minister Shazia Marri, all the payment centres were kept open on holidays for disbursement of financial assistance to the affected people. The bank timings have been increased by 2 hours and there will be no holidays.

The BISP official said more than 1,200 people, including around 400 children, lost their lives, while hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed.

The official said the recent floods had badly damaged the infrastructure, dealing a loss of billions of rupees to the state kitty. The floods have destroyed almost 5,000km of roads. The mountainous area suffered the worst where many bridges collapsed, rendering some areas completely inaccessible. The floods caused significant damage to the phone lines and disrupted power supply to many towns in Swat, Lower and Upper Dir, and Basham areas of KP, and Balochistan, Sindh and South Punjab, etc.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) assessment, the floods caused damages of unprecedented scale to the crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry, and primary infrastructure such as tube wells, water channels, household storages, animal sheds, personal seed stocks, fertilizers and agricultural machinery.

Muhammad Suleman, a resident of Charsadda and a beneficiary of the emergency cash assessment programme, said he had lost his home, cattle, and crops. He received a financial assistance of Rs25,000.

Talking to WealthPK, Khatoon Bibi said, “I left the house on the orders of deputy commissioner Nowshera due to the alarming flood situation there. I left almost everything behind except some essential items. I have received Rs25,000.”

Yasin Khan is also among the flood victims. His house collapsed in floods, forcing him to shift from Charsadda to a relief camp in Peshawar empty-handed. He lost a horse and 33 cattle including goats, sheep, and cows. He also received cash assistance of Rs25,000.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk