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ISLAMABAD: Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kashmir, and Gilgit Baltistan, Senator Salim Saifullah Khan submitted a Bill on the rehabilitation and financial assistance to the victims of natural disasters and other related crises and called for timely assistance to people of calamities hit areas.
"Our country is prone to various natural calamities such as floods, droughts, storms, hailstorms, cyclones, landslides and earthquakes, which cause extensive damage to life and property," he said.
He said the occurrence of natural calamities cannot be stopped but certainly its effects could be minimised through combined efforts and by providing the affectees with timely financial relief and extending the rehabilitation programmes to them.
Senator Salim Saifullah Khan urged that the government should play its due role in this process as provincial governments were not well equipped to deal with any natural calamities and to provide relief to the victims.
He said that the victims of natural calamity should be provided with the financial assistance and other facilities.
Highlighting key points of the Bill he has said that in case of life loss, financial assistance in the form of compensation should not be less than five lakh rupees and be given to the next of the kin of the deceased. In the Bill, he demanded that suitable employment shall be provided to one of the dependants of the deceased. He said that in case of severe injuries medical treatment free of cost and financial assistance should be provided subject to the limit of a minimum amount of fifty thousand rupees and maximum amount of two lakh rupees.
The Senator said that in case of damage to the home, the affectee shall be provided with such financial assistance as is required for the repair or reconstruction of the damaged dwelling unit. "In case of irreparable damage to the agricultural land, he shall be provided with cultivable land of equal area at a reasonable distance from the place of his residence and in case of damage to the standing crops he shall be given compensation in proportion to the losses suffered by him; and in case of loss of livestock, he shall be given adequate financial assistance in proportion to the losses suffered by him," he said. -NNI
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