Landless quake victims to receive compensation

The Pakistani government has begun compensating those left landless by a devastating earthquake almost two years ago - a move likely to help thousands of quake victims rebuild their lives.

"I lost everything in the quake," Liaquot Alit, a 27-year-old day labourer said, recalling how his home and the land it sat on slid down a hillside in the village of Chailina, 50km north of Muzaffarabad, capital of quake-affected Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

"If I get the money, I will definitely buy some land and rebuild," he said outside the Thoori displaced persons camp in Muzaffarabad.

On 8 October 2005, over 75,000 people were killed and thousands more injured when a 7.6 magnitude quake ripped through Pakistani-administered Kashmir and the country's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

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The government is already assisting those who lost their homes, providing nearly US$3,000 for homeowners to rebuild, but those who lost their land were denied that assistance.

"We had no land to build on so we didn't get anything," Liaquot said; thousands more like him were thus placed in a quagmire of bureaucratic red tape.

New policy to help landless

In an effort to address that, the government's Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), in consultation with state and provincial authorities, and with the support of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), approved a policy on 27 March 2007 to help the landless purchase land and reconstruct their homes.

As part of the policy, individuals who owned land on or before 8 October 2005 - which can be proven by land records, and do not own land elsewhere exceeding 1,361 square feet - but, as a result of the quake, lost all or part of the land, will be given about $1,250 to buy a new piece of land no smaller than the original land.

Photo: David Swanson/IRIN

Once covered in greenery, large tracts of land vanished in seconds from this mountain top in the October 2005 quake

These individuals will then qualify to apply for the regular housing compensation scheme.

"Those who have lost their land cannot rebuild their homes, but this is the first step in that process allowing them to do that," Kamran Abbassi, regional information officer for UN-Habitat said.

But for the 10,000 families estimated to be eligible under this policy, the process is not without its own hurdles.

The policy does not include the many thousands whose land was not lost but has since been deemed unsafe to return to due to the risk of further avalanches.

Verification stages

Applicants must go through three verification stages after visiting the land verification unit (LVU) in their area, including: verification with the Pakistani revenue department to confirm ownership of the land in question; verification whether the applicant is already receiving any part of the ERRA housing subsidy and if so how much; and lastly, physical inspection of the destroyed land - undertaken to ensure that the land in question has actually been destroyed and is no longer habitable.

Those who have lost their land cannot rebuild their homes, but this is the first step in that process allowing them to do that.

Upon completion of these stages of verification, a beneficiary is then declared landless and will be issued an entitlement certificate and be asked to complete negotiations for the purchase of new land.

Once a new piece of land has been found and the terms of its sale negotiated, the beneficiary submits the seller information to the LVU which then sends a request to ERRA to release the money.

To help the beneficiary to complete the whole process of receiving financial assistance and acquiring the land in his name, a process known as a "one window" operation has been devised.

In this process, small groups of qualified landless are called together with their respective sellers of land, with mobile bank facilities on hand. Here, the revenue department, with LVU staff, distribute the cheques to the seller at the agreed price. At the same time, new changes to the land deeds are recorded.

Photo: David Swanson/IRIN

A young boy at the Thoori displaced persons camp in Muzaffarabad - where many residents today claim to be landless

In the presence of the community, the revenue department and its partners, the landless now become landowners and qualify for ERRA's regular housing compensation scheme which they were earlier denied.

On 28 September, the first "open window operation" was carried out at the LVU in Mansehra, NWFP, providing compensation for nine individuals, with a second one slated for 2 October for another nine people in badly quake-affected Balokot city nearby.

According to UN-Habitat's Abbassi, the project has been designed so that applicants only need to come to the LVU in their area to submit their application which is accepted or rejected there. The verification process can take up to three months.

There are seven LVUs in the quake affected area, including five in Pakistani-administered Kashmir and two in NWFP.

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