Govt to spend $22.5m on community livelihood
By Adnan Rafique

ISLAMABAD—Government would spend $22.5 million through community livelihood and rehabilitation programme to enhance social mobilization in 120 villages of earthquake hit areas.
This was stated by Deputy Chairman Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) Lt. Gen. Nadeem Ahmed while addressing two-day long engineers conference here on Tuesday. The conference was jointly organized by ERRA and Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) with an aim to review issues and problems confronting rural housing reconstruction project and to improve the capacity through sharing each others experiences and knowledge. Deputy Chairman ERRA said that rural housing reconstruction project in earthquake hit areas would be completed by June this year as this project was nearing completion. a He said that there were some problems in reconstructing the houses as some people have not even started reconstruction of their houses.
“People will be educated through social mobilizers to start reconstruction of their houses to take benefit of the project”, he added. Lt. Gen. Nadeem Ahmed said that National Construction Code was approved by the government including two designs prepared by ERRA and NESPAK to provide guideline in construction process. He appreciated the role of engineers who worked hard and had to face many difficulties during field work and to provide guidance for reconstruction. He urged upon the engineers to work hard with full honesty to makefoundations of the country more sound. Speaking on the occasion, Chief Executive PPAF Kamal Hyat said that PPAF and ERRA has set an example of team work adding that all problems could be overcome by creating team spirit.