The establishment of a Forest and Climate Change Authority can help effectively deal with any disaster, said Punjab Emergency Service Director General Rizwan Naseer on Monday.
He was addressing rescuers at Rescue 1122 Headquarters on the International Day for Disaster Reduction.
The Punjab Emergency Service (Rescue 1122) marked the day across the province. It called for the establishment of ‘land use and building control’ authorities for planned urbanisation.
Naseer said Rescue 1122 had been providing timely emergency services to citizens without any discrimination.
He stressed the need for proper planning to prevent a growing number of emergencies and disasters.
Naseer said developing countries faced challenges related to unplanned urbanisation, poor building control governance, population growth, expansion of livelihood activities in hazard prone areas and environmental degradation.
“There is need to develop an institutional infrastructure with clarity of roles and responsibility, legal mandate, capacity building and performance accountability.”
Earlier, the Provincial Monitoring Cell gave a briefing to the director general.
He was informed that Rescue 1122 has responded to more than 2.4 million emergencies since 2004. These include 93,6703 road accidents; 5,108 building collapses and 58,894 fire incidents. More than 90,000 people affected by recent floods were also relocated by the service, he was informed.
Naseer said prevention of emergencies was the major function of emergency services in developed countries.
Naseer called for community participation in this regard.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2014.
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