Rules on payment of compensation amended.

PESHAWAR -- The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa relief, rehabilitation and settlement department has amended its regulations in cases where bodies are not recovered or burnt beyond recognition to enable families to receive compensation money without any difficulty.

In this respect, the department had on Jan 16 notified an amendment to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Relief Compensation Regulations, 2019.

A senior official told Dawn that the amendment was necessitated due to the fact that the existing compensation policy required a certificate for establishing death.

He said the July 2019 boat capsize incident in Tarbela Dam, where about 20 bodies were never recovered, showed that there needed to be a separate mechanism to pay compensation money to the families where the body was either not recovered or charred beyond recognition in bomb blasts or fire incidents. He said the amendment had addressed this lacuna.

The amendment provides for issuance of certificates by...