Tk 30.5 cr more EC aid for Bangladesh's flood victims

The European Commission has approved a further package of humanitarian aid worth 5.45 million euro (Taka 30.5 crore) for victims of last year's floods in Bangladesh, reports BSS.

This aid, managed by the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO), will enable humanitarian organisations to continue to provide relief to the floods victims. It undertakes to link relief with rehabilitation and development and in so doing seeks to reduce dependency on emergency aid, a press release said.

ECHO's partners for this programme are several non-governmental organisations including the NGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Cafod (GB), Concerned World Wide (Ireland), BRAC/Novib (Netherlands), Oxfam (GB and Bangladesh) and Aparajeyo/Terre des Hommes Foundation (Italy).

The principal activities undertaken will be crop recovery through providing seeds and other agricultural inputs to over 125,000 families, occupational rehabilitation by supplying inputs such as tools, saplings, fish fry and chicks to over 100,000 people to enable them resume their income-generating activities, housing by providing construction materials to repair and reconstruct 14,000 houses, the supply of clean water by repairing and installing over 30,000 tubewells, and sanitation by building over 27,000 latrines.

As an immediate response to the crisis, ECHO had approved a package worth one million euro (Tk 5.6 crore) in September last year and a further two million euro (Tk 11 crore) in October. These grants focussed on food, medical support, purification of water supplies, sanitation services and shelter.