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BEHIND A lonely store selling basic supplies on a rural road in Pakistan’s Azad and Jammu Kashmir, Tanvir lives with three families of relatives.

The three houses that make up their shared compound collapsed under the force of the giant earthquake that shook the isolated and mountainous region almost two years ago.

Tanvir’s grandmother, sister-in-law and young nephew were killed as their homes caved in around them.

Using sheets of corrugated metal and salvaged strips of timber, Tanvir and his relatives erected makeshift shelters to get them through the winter snows that came within weeks of the devastating quake.

The shelters housed the extended family of 12 through the following year’s monsoon, a season that also brings potentially killer landslides.

When the government’s Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority began issuing compensation payments to people who’d lost their homes, Tanvir and his relatives got to work – buying supplies and hiring laborers to begin rebuilding their homes with the first two installments of the housing grants, totaling 100,000 rupees ($1,666).

By the time the second monsoon season came, they had almost completed their first home: a two room stone and wood cottage, using traditional masonry.

The foundations have been laid for an extension. They’re waiting for the 3rd and 4th installments of 50,000 rupees each so they can complete it before the 2007 winter.

“When we get the next 50,000 rupees we will be able to build on the foundations,” says Tanvir.

The Government of Pakistan has already spent $621.5 million on the housing reconstruction program for the 585,000 rural homes which were damaged or destroyed in the earthquake.

To help reimburse part of the government’s expenditure and to assist it in meeting its May 2008 deadline for rebuilding 585,000 homes, the Asian Development Bank is lending $400 million.

The first tranche of $200 million dollars was released in July 2007 to reimburse some of funds already spent on housing.

The second $200 million tranche will follow six months later to help finance additional housing costs.

“Housing in particular is a prerequisite for livelihood regeneration and subsequently economic recovery,” ADB’s Country Director for Pakistan, Peter Fedon, explains.

“Without addressing the shelter issue first, reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts would be ineffective.”

The housing compensation program also helps people who have lost the land their homes were on – either through quake-triggered landslides, or through a reconstruction ban on areas zoned seismically dangerous.

In the Mera Tanolian camp for displaced people remain 200 families who cannot rebuild on their land because it is at high risk of future earthquakes or landslides.

People in the “landless” category qualify for 75,000 rupees ($1,250) assistance under the Government’s housing program.

Anwar Jan cares for her children and two baby granddaughters in a tent in Mera Tanolian looking down the slopes towards the city of Muzaffarabad.

They cannot return to their land because it is in the dangerous seismic zone, and slides have blocked all access to it.

Her family has received the first housing grant installment of 25,000 rupees.

“We used the first installment to pay laborers to demolish our ruined home and clear the rubble from our plot,” she says.

They are now looking for new land on which to build a future home for the extended family of nine. Anwar Jan estimates a new plot would cost her family 100,000 rupees.

“There is no longer any access to our village, so we need to buy new land in another area,” Anwar Jan says.

“We came here to the camp straight after the earthquake. The government helped us a lot. They gave us blankets, medicine, mattresses, and NGOs supplied food. We got food, medicine. We can stay here until we get really proper accommodation.”

A few tents away, Sayed Ghulam Hussain Shah is also waiting for new land. He was working on a building site in Muzaffarabad when the earthquake struck. He was crushed under rubble for half an hour. His lower right leg was so badly wounded it had to be amputated.

Shah’s home is in the dangerous seismic area. He is looking for land close to the city in a flat area because he’s unable to climb hills daily due to his lost leg.

“I need a plot on the flat plains because I’m unable to walk,” he laments.

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