Govt creates 48 townships for returnees across country: Official

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) created 48 townships in 30 provinces for forcibly deported migrants and allocated over 14,000 acres of land plots for poor families among them.

Kamal Afghan, spokesman for the Ministry of Urban Development and Home (MoUDH), told Pajhwok Afghan News the government has formed a commission comprising 12 committees to manage the issues of forcibly deported Afghan migrants from Pakistan and Iran.

One of the 12 committees is a permanent committee which identifies, surveys and creates townships on state land for needy and poor migrants and returnees who need shelters all over 34 provinces of the country, Afghan said.

The commission identifies needed facilities of migrants and shares their lists with the permanent committee for providing them a piece of land for building houses in each province.

MoUDH has so far created 48 migrant townships in 30 provinces of the country and identified over 14,000 acres of land for such townships across the country.

The survey process has been completed in most of the provinces and the MoUDH is working on detailed plans of townships and the distribution of land for migrants, Afghan added.

MoUDH has also suggested to the office of the Supreme Leader of the IEA about the land to be transferred to the ministry from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MoALI) to MoUDH.

Separately, MoUDH also wrote on X that the committees had identified over 14,000 acres of land in nine provinces of the country for less fortunate and poor returnees.

The land was identified in Kabul, Ghazni, Uruzgan, Farah, Kandahar, Jawzjan, Samangan, Panjsher and Bamyan provinces.

The topographical study of the land was completed in Ghazni, Uruzgan, Kandahar, Jawzjan, Samangan, Panjsher and Bamyan provinces and it will be completed in other provinces soon.

Engineer Mohammad Fahim Zakaria, chief of the permanent committee said, each of the committees was working to find such land for the creation of migrants’ residential townships.

aw/ma