KARACHI – The district coordination officers (DCOs) of the flood-affected districts in Sindh have reported that reconstruction work funded by the government and NGOs is under way in their areas, but their data needs to be verified to get an accurate picture of what has been achieved so far, suggested participants of a meeting held at the committee room of the Sindh Planning and Development Department on Saturday.
The meeting was held under the directives of President Asif Ali Zardari to discuss the construction of houses for the people affected by the recent devastating floods. During the meting, Sindh Power Minister Shazia Marri stressed upon all government functionaries concerned to collaborate efforts and boost rehabilitation work of flood survivors by identifying lands for the construction of houses in the flood-hit areas for which various friendly countries and donor agencies have assured financial assistance.
Housing Minister Agha Taimoor, Adviser to Sindh Chief Minister on Planning and Development Kaiser Bengali, Special Assistant Ziaul Islam, Planning and Development Additional Chief Secretary Ishaq Lashari, Housing Secretary Shahabuddin Channa and People’s Housing Cell Chairman Fasiuddin also participated in the meeting. The meeting was informed that as per the available data, 173,000 houses were completely destroyed by the catastrophic floods.
Marri and Bengali informed the participants that Turkey had offered to construct 2,000 houses and Iran had promised to provide Rs 100 million for the construction of houses for the flood-affected people. However, the land for these houses has not been identified by the DCOs. They said satellite townships would surely change the living culture of Sindh under which people in these downtrodden areas will get basic facilities of life including better education and health services.
The participants of
