Margalla Hills fire: CDA paid Rs0.636m per hour for helicopter-bowser

Senate panel asks civic body to submit list of firefighting equipment required

As a massive fire raged on the picturesque Margalla Hills, the civic authority had to pay through the nose to hire a helicopter to dump water on the inferno.

This was disclosed in a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change. The committee met at the Parliament Lodges on Wednesday with Senator Sitara Ayaz in the chair.

The meeting sought a report from the Capital Development Authority (CDA) over the recent fires in the Margalla Hills where the entire capital could see smoke billowing over the hills.

CDA officials told the standing committee that they did not have the required resources to control the wildfires, particularly after many of their departments had been devolved to the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation.

Referring to the recent fire where it took a military helicopter to ferry water to the hills, the CDA said that they had to pay the military $5,500 per hour for the operation.

At this, an astonished Senator Ayaz said that the government should be told what equipment the civic authority requires to control such incidents in the future. A copy of this list, she directed, must be submitted to the standing committee.



Climate change

Briefing the committee climate change ministry secretary and the additional secretary said that Pakistan is on the list of the ten countries which  are most affected by climate change.

The committee was told that the non-development budget for the ministry was Rs162 million for the fiscal year 2017-2018 while this had been marginally enhanced in the budget for FY 2018-2019 to Rs175 million.

Having signed 14 international environmental protection agreements, they said that projects worth Rs802 million have been included in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for 2018-2019.

They added that a summary for the Pakistan Climate Change Authority Act 2017, has been sent, but it has yet to be approved.

Briefing about the Rs4.7 billion Green Pakistan Programme, they said that under it, they intend to plant 100 million trees over four years. So far, 25 million trees have been planted.

Senator Faisal Javed said that a mafia was actively chopping down forests across the country and urged the ministry to look into the matter and called for an emergency to be declared over the issue.

Senator Ali Saif said that there is a need to hold detailed consultations with the ministries and provinces, and any gap between the provinces and the federal government should be bridged.



Senator Muhammad Akram pointed to the rising pollution in the sea owing to the dumping of polluted water. He further said that the green belts have been ruined owing to the rampant construction of roads and housing societies.

The climate change secretary said that in neighbouring India, the powers of the ministry were transferred from the provinces to the federal government while the opposite had happened in Pakistan.

He added that instead of denuding, the country was, in fact, witnessing a growth in forests

Senator Ayaz, though, was unmoved. She pointed out that owing to global warming and deforestation, significant climatic changes were emerging across the country.

The federal capital, she said, had lost its beauty owing to deforestation.

Noting that a mafia was behind it, she further said that the capital was also facing an acute shortage of water along with an increase in the environmental pollution and rising temperatures.

“The dams located on the outskirts of Islamabad are polluted,” she said, lamenting that the concerned departments take no action against it.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2018.