ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday instructed the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) to complete the construction of schools destroyed 16 years ago in the 2005 Balakot earthquake by 2022.
An irked Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed asked Chairman ERRA Lieutenant-General Akhtar Nawaz for the reasons in delay of the construction.
“Had your children been deprived of education, these projects would have been completed way back,” the chief justice remarked.
Lieutenant-General Akhtar Nawaz replied that only 3,000 out of 14,000 projects are yet to be completed.
“Education and health have always been our top priority,” he said.
To this apex court remarked that if that was the case, schools and hospitals in the earthquake-affected areas should have been built within a year
“Sixteen years have been passed but destroyed schools have not been reconstructed,” the judge observed.
