LAHORE:Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi on Thursday said that a total of Rs 12.20 billion in aid was being given to 55,400 flood victims.
The government was giving 2.8 lakh rupees each to the owners of 47,500 mud houses and 4 lakh rupees each to the owners of 8 thousand concrete houses, he added.
Addressing the ceremony of distributing relief funds to the flood victims, the CM said that valuable work had been done by armed forces, Akhuwat and NGOs for the victims. “I went to different areas of DG Khan to assess the situation”, he said and added that thousands of houses and schools were washed away by the floods. He also commended the efforts of officers who lend a helping hand and noted that Sania Nishtar developed a wonderful distribution system in two months. The transparency of the aid program was unprecedented as the record was available on the PDMA system, he added.
The Punjab CM said that World Bank, Asian Development Bank and ambassadors of different countries had also praised the aid program.
The CM said that work equal to one year had been done in three months which would benefit the common man. He said that children were given free education and books before and now they were benefiting from free education till graduation. Three times more stipends would be given than before to the girl students of south Punjab, he added.
Chief Secretary Abdullah Sumbal said that a coordinated and transparent aid mechanism had been established through collective efforts.
The CM formally launched the program and gave relief funds to the victims of Taunsa, Jampur, Kot Chhata, Rajanpur, and Rojhan at the special BoP counter.
Provincial Ministers Dr Yasmin Rashid, Mian Aslam Iqbal, Sardar Hasnain Bahadur Dreshak, Mohsin Leghari, Umar Sarfaraz Cheema, members of assembly Hafiz Ammar Yasir, PTI leader Jamshed Cheema, secretaries and others were also present on the occasion.