A CASE STUDY OF ERRA FOCUSING ON RECONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES IN DISTRICT ABBOTTABAD

Abstract

October 05 Earthquake not only tested our unity as a nation but gave us a chance to turn this devastation into opportunity. The gigantic task of reconstruction and rehabilitation spreading over a vast area of 30,000 Sq Km was not possible without having an organization that could coordinate and integrate all the efforts; pertaining to post disaster reconstruction and rehabilitation in quake affected areas. ERRA (Earthquake reconstruction and rehabilitation Authority) was established on 24 Oct 2005. The task of rehabilitation and reconstruction being executed in 9 districts of Khyber Pakhtun Khwa (KPK) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) has been divided into 12 sectors consisting of 14,095 projects. At present in this rehabilitation and reconstruction program 80 - 90 % task has been completed in three important sectors of Housing, Water and sanitation and Telecommunication, whereas in remaining 9 sectors progress ranges from 40 – 60 %. Following the earthquake the scale of reconstruction work necessitated the establishment of dedicated institutions within the Provincial and State governments down to District level, to look after reconstruction activity and oversee construction contracts. Analysis of the project implementation and monitoring bodies at District level is necessary to find out strengths and weaknesses with a view to suggest improvements. There is also a need to identify reasons of delays and slow progress in these projects to improve the progress and incorporate correction during the ongoing construction process. This study is combination of qualitative and quantitative research. To analyze project implementation and monitoring set ups at district level qualitative method of research incorporating interviews of key officials and documents review was adopted. While reasons of slow progress and delayed completion were analyzed using quantitative method of research i-e questionnaire survey. A total of 125 respondents from Client, Consultant and Contractor category participated in survey.