ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is ready to dole out billions to rehabilitate the Temporarily Displaced Persons (TDPs), officials said on Sunday.
The government has so far released more than Rs25 billion for cash assistance and rehabilitation of TDPs. Officials said Rs80 billion will be incurred on the rehabilitation of TDPs over the next three years.
The government aims to support the early recovery of families affected by the militancy crisis, promote child health, and strengthen emergency response safety net delivery systems in the affected areas of the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas.
The development project comprises of three components. The first component, early recovery package for the TDPs aims to support approximately 120,000 displaced families from Fata through two unconditional cash grants: a one-time early recovery grant of $350 per family and a livelihood support grant of $160 per family in four monthly installments of $40.
The second component, promoting child health in selected areas of Fata will be available to all families with children aged 0-2 years, belonging to the targeted agencies of Fata irrespective of whether they are TDPs or not.
The third component, strengthening programme management and oversight will provide technical assistance to enhance programme management, transparency, and accountability at the federal, Fata secretariat, and local level administration through capacity building, stakeholder consultation, social mobilisation and awareness, strategic communication, and monitoring.
TDPs are mainly concentrated in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Fata but also live in Balochistan province and other parts of Pakistan. Numbers likely underestimate the scale of displacement as they exclude unregistered TDPs living in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata and those living in other parts of Pakistan, including in urban centres such as Karachi. To calculate the number of individuals displaced, an average family size of 5.2 is used.
People who become displaced but do not hold a computerised national identity card, have two addresses or whose CNIC contains faulty information – such as a duplicate family number – are not eligible to register as TDPs.
Further, only those TDPs whose home areas the government has declared to be “calamity-hit” are registered.
Apart from the military operation, the country has also experienced large-scale displacement as a result of disasters brought on by natural hazards, mainly floods.
Yesterday (Sunday), government officials said more than Rs25 billion were released so far for cash assistance and rehabilitation of the TDPs.
These officials said about 70, 000 displaced families had been repatriated to Khyber Agency, 5,770 to the North Waziristan Agency and 7,940 people returned to the South Waziristan.
“The government aims to complete rehabilitation of displaced families in their areas. Work is in progress for reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure,” said an official.
Another official said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wanted early rehabilitation of the TDPs and was ready to grant as much money as needed for their settlement. “There will be no scarcity of funds for this process. The PM wants to help the TDPs in every manner,” he said.
Defence analyst Brigadier (r) Mehmood Shah said war against terrorism was going on in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Africa but only Pakistan has been able to get success and has managed to reduce terrorism to much extent. He said Pakistan sought help from many powerful countries for support in war against terrorism but they did not take the calls seriously.
Shah said at last Pakistan initiated operation Zarb-e-Azb with its own available resources. “This war has also affected the economy of Pakistan. Army has destroyed the hideouts and networks of the terrorists and now the remaining terrorists have been fleeing for their lives,” he added.
Senior analyst Dr A Z Hilali said Pakistan has been badly affected by the menace of terrorism. “The government and armed forces initiated a war against terrorism to eradicate it from the country. So for, we have achieved our targets to a great extent,” he maintained.
Hilali said people were going back to their homes after the successful operation in the tribal belt by the Pakistan forces and the government was spending generously for their rehabilitation.
He added that terrorists were the enemies of humanity, adding attacks in Paris highlight Pakistan’s point of view that terrorism was a global issue.
Globally speaking, millions have been displaced by conflict and violence alone. According to the Global Overview 2015, released by Norwegian Refugee Council, 38 million people around the world were forced to live in displacement within the borders of their own country.
Pakistan topped the list of such countries in South Asia, mainly due to the counter-insurgency operations carried out in North Wazisristan and Khyber agencies. Around 907,000 people fled their homes as a result of these operations in 2014, while the number stood at 140,000 in 2013.
The government believes that despite the phased return of the families displaced by the ongoing military offensive against the Taliban, the last of the internal refugees will not be able to return home until December 2016. This is seen as an indication that the government anticipates the operation to last for another year or so.
Finance ministry says the return of the 336,762 families from Fata will be undertaken in five phases ending December 2016.
The government expects the total expenditure on the rehabilitation of TDPs and security operations to cost Rs175 billion. The earlier estimate called for Rs75 billion for TDP rehabilitation and reconstruction and Rs50 billion for security. The costs increased after the government decided to expand the operation beyond the North Waziristan Agency.
In June 2014, the government launched a ground offensive in the North Waziristan aided by airstrikes. At that time the government had hoped that the militants would be flushed out from their safe havens within six months. However, as the operation progressed, the military decided to expand it to other areas as well, particularly after the heinous attack on Army Public School in Peshawar.