Pak to get Rs 4.2 bn loan from Saudi

Islamabad: Saudi Arabia will provide a loan of Rs 4.2 billion to Pakistan for different development projects to be implemented under Rawalakot City Development Project (RCDP), to reconstruct the city infrastructure in public and private sectors, which was damaged by 2005 devastating earthquake.

The Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (Erra) has submitted a detailed programme in this regard to the Planning and Development (P&D) Division.

Sources said the total cost of the project is Rs 8.4 billion with the government contribution of Rs 4.2 billion. The government allocation will be funded from Erra's allocation of Rs 35 billion for the current fiscal year.

This will be a mega project with a number of sub-projects in health, education, sanitation, sewerage, road infrastructure areas. The sources said that Erra has prepared umbrella PC-I of the project.

The government has already approved different projects for Azad Jammu and Kashmir, which include Muzaffarabad City Development Project costing Rs 21 billion, Balakot City Development Project of Rs 12 billion,. etc and Bagh City Development Project costing Rs 7.31 billion. These projects are also being implemented from Erra's this year budget.

According to Erra's assessment, Rawalakot district has suffered a significant loss due to the October 2005 earthquake. Around 83 percent of the private houses were fully damaged. The damage to the education sector is 95 percent as 923 schools were damaged in both public and private sectors.

About 213 health facilities were fully or partially damaged. The direct and the indirect losses to agriculture have been estimated at Rs 8.49 billion and Rs 4.22 billion respectively. The road infrastructure, 45.4-km metalled and 507-km of link roads with four bridges were damaged.

The National Engineering Service Pakistan (Nespak), according to the sources, had undertaken a master plan and it had suggested 33 projects involving roads, bridges, government buildings and urban settlements, etc Nespak had proposed the cost of all the projects at Rs 7.31 billion.

The execution of some of the important projects has not been up to mark in most of the cases. Erra is all in all in projects' execution, and it has no assistance from other divisions and departments. This very issue, sometimes, creates a lot of hardships in implementing the projects as the Authority is always short of skilled workforce.