Rain emergency meeting: All aid to go through provinces first

Disaster management authority headquarters to be shifted to Hyderabad.

KARACHI: Any assistance or relief goods sent by the federal government via the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) will be sent to the Sindh government and Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) instead of directly to the district governments, decided the Sindh government on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani’s parliamentary committee to assess losses because of the rains in Sindh, got together at the CM House where they briefed a gathering of ministers.

Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah directed that the PDMA headquarters be shifted to Hyderabad immediately. All consignments and relief goods in trailers and trucks will be collected here and a minister or adviser is to be assigned to receive, monitor and disburse them to the flooded districts.

The parliamentary committee discussed emergency measures and necessary arrangements for the supply of relief goods, particularly tents, food, medicine and clean drinking water. An estimated 70 per cent of the losses were in lower Sindh while about 5.5 million people have been affected.

Of the Rs5billion allocate by the government, the gathering decided to allocated Rs1 billion in Watan Cards by providing Rs10,000  to each affected family whose house has been damaged. They have begun distributing the cards, said Shah.

The federal government has supplied 30,000 mosquito nets and the PDMA Hyderabad office will be given the remaining 70,000 nets. Meanwhile, some friendly countries like China and Iran have already announced assistance, and their consignments are to be received soon. The NDMA has dispatched 40,000 of 90,000 tents and the remainder will be supplied within a couple of days. The PDMA has distributed 0.16 million tents of which 31,782 are their own and 9,000 were given by Red Crescent. The PDMA director general said that 652,715 food packets have been distributed in all districts. The CM also told the finance department to release Rs300 million for repairs of damaged roads.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th,  2011.