News
Senate’s Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat meets
* Parliamentarians, rulers, departments ‘responsible’ for flood damages
By Ijaz Kakakhel
ISLAMABAD: A Senate committee on Wednesday said besides government departments, politicians and rulers were equally responsible for flood destruction because they totally failed to provide prior warning of expected flood which created havoc particularly in Punjab Province.
The body also expressed displeasures over lack of coordination among various flood-related government departments like NDMA, Federal Flood Commission (FFC) and Met Office. The world was making development and forecasting about rain or floods few weeks ago but in Pakistan, government departments have totally failed to learn lessons from natural disasters like 2005 earthquake and 2010 floods.
Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat Chairperson Kalsoom Parveen said that disaster-related government departments did not have plans to deal with natural calamities. During floods and earthquake, army boats and helicopters were utilised to rescue and relief activities, even the affected people were helped through forces, she maintained.
The senators also expressed displeasure over government departments who put responsibility over each other for not providing proper flood warning, which according to the committee, might have saved several people and their goods.
Earlier, the committee was also given a detailed briefing about recent floods by the NDMA and the FFC.
NDMA Chairman Major General Muhammad Saeed Aleem said that flash flooding, landsliding, urban flooding and river flooding mainly caused the damage. In response to Senator Saeeda Iqbal’s question, he said that this year’s monsoon rainfall was not in Suleiman Range and floods came in Ravi, Jhelum and Chenab Rivers as a result of water release from India.
Senator Rubina Khalid and Senator Begum Najma Hameed proposed to the committee that volunteer forces needed to be prepared and trained so that whenever any such disaster hits Pakistan, we were in a position to handle it and provide relief at a larger scale.
FFC Chairman Asjad Imtiaz said that a National Flood Protection Plan (2015-25) was under preparation and it would complete its work plan about structural and non-structural measures, mapping and zoning and automation of flood reporting system by January 31, 2015. Senator Kalsoom Parveen expressed her concerns on hiring NESPAK as consultant for the plan and asked for including more companies for the project rather than only one.
The committee was briefed that 2.53 million people were affected in the floods, 360 people died, 646 people got injured, 4,065 villages damaged, 2.42 million acres of crops affected, 56,644 houses damaged and 8,957 cattle head perished. The members were of the view that the committee was more concerned with what steps would be taken in future instead of what was being done. Senator Kamil Ali Agha while expressing his anguish said that departments were here to give briefing but that they don’t do anything practically.
To another agenda item, the committee expressed its dissatisfaction over progress on New Balakot City Project and decided to visit the site itself after Eidul Azha. The committee showed resentment over the slow pace of work and called it a failure of departments concerned.
Brigadier Wajid, acting deputy chairman of Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), said that 67% rehabilitation work has been completed in the areas affected by 2005 earthquake and that the rest was in progress. He complained that ERRA was not being given the authority to work on New Balakot City Project properly and up till now only 14 percent of the land has been given under ERRA’s control while 86% of land of the project was disputed; hence ERRA was denied permission to work. In response to senators’ queries about reasons of these hurdles, he said that the ERRA has repeatedly asked the prime minister and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister for help but that no concrete steps have been taken as yet.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk