It is the primary function of a government to exercise its regulatory controls through enforcement of laws in existence and protect lives and private property of citizens. A state collects taxes to perform its regulatory functions and enforce rule of law. The State was aware of climatic changes. It should have ensured protection of natural environments to prevent the wrath of nature.
It is essential that qualified urban planners are recruited by every province. Civil servants, trained for administrative functions, or security agencies should have no role in town planning or forestation. Fields free of any concrete structures are essential to absorb excess water due to rains or floods. This becomes more important when flow and release of excess flood water is in control of a country, like India. Plantation, trees and soft soil serves to facilitate water absorption, prevent soil erosion and replenish underground water reserves which are acting as buffers against overflowing rivers. They protect cities from devastation.
Unfortunately, the greed for commercial profits by real estate developers successfully blinded the city and provincial governments, with their grandiose vision of high-rise buildings surrounded by artificial canals. Other housing schemes have mushroomed around the periphery of this city and now encroach the natural flow of river path, apart from drastic reduction in vital agricultural food. Environmentalists had warned of the danger, but bureaucracy prevailed with their argument that such floods occur once in a “thousand years”. Well, nature has its own time frame.
Malik Tariq Ali
Lahore
