Need Assessments

My primary function here, other then the fact that both me and Jawad are purveyors of fine clothing and hi tech equipment, is need assessment of the rural population. The process is somewhat inefficient but after working for six days in the field, I can say it works.

Sungi sends assessment teams to far off villages to assess the damage to their residence and then issue coupons/chits to head of households, after identifying their residence in that particular village and union council through the National ID card. The chits entitle them to collect NFI (Non food items) dependent on the program we are working on with our partner organizations like Oxfam and Save the Children. This could include tent, blankets, plastic sheets, stove, nails, pans, etc. We record demographical information by household, which is defined by a choola/stove. A stove represents separate family units living under the same household. This includes male, female, children, widows and orphans. Humanitarian organizations like Sungi stress the reporting of widows and orphans for preferential treatment, which prompted one angry villager to ask me, ‘Randowa ka ki hona hai, meri do zauja zalzalay mein faut ho gein/What about male widowers, two of my wives died in the earthquake’

In Balakot Sungi was working in the Angarai, Mandary, Talhata and Kawai Union councils, while in Muzzafarabad we were handling Langarpura, Hattian Dupata and Ghori. The Government of Pakistan has inherited the hierarchical categorization of rural population units from the British and the Mughals. The current set up is set as follows

Province - NWFP
Division - Hazara
District - Mansehra
Tehsil - Balakot
Union Council - Kawai
Revenue Village - Paras
Hamlet - Tangsan

District Mansehra has three Tehsils, Balakot being one of them. Each tehsil could have 10-15 Union councils each comprised of 40-80 revenue villages. Howeve there are some interesting issues to consider here.

The first is the issue of the Patwar circle, which was set up under the Mughals to collect village revenues. This was continued under the British and now http://Risepak.com, the premier internet site for relief information does its population demographics by the Patwari circle. The 1998 mostly population census conducted by the Government of Pakistan (GOP) also has followed this useless hierarchy. The reality on the ground is completely different. The hundreds of folks that I have interviewed have no idea what a patwari circle is, but they know their Union councils, which are head by the Nazims, while the revenue villages elect a councilor.

Secondly, the revenue villages (gaon) are usually the dakhli Mohalla, meaning the first and the easiest to reach hamlet (mohalla). Only recently has the mohall demographic have been recorded mostly through field workers of NGO like Sungi. This has resulted in a big gap in census data.

Lastly, the non-existent of any sort of provincial government in Azad Jammu Kashmir is disturbing. Although most of the work is done at the Union Council level, the non-representation of AJK people in our parliament is confusing to me. I am not familiar with the politics of the issue, but even a lethargic and corrupt government carries some weight in national affairs. However, from a global perspective, it is a Kashmir earthquake and they have received most of the media’s attention.