KARACHI: Priorities need to be fixed so that relief and rehabilitation of flood affected people can be improved, said Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Tuesday at Chief Minister House. The chief minister presided over a meeting on flood damages and recovery plan for the province.
Shah said that the distribution of Rs20,000 to each flood-affected family in Sindh has started from Thatta, where identity cards were also given out. Each card bears the photograph of the affectee so that nobody can abuse the privilege, he added.
Adviser Kaisar Bengali said that the dislocation caused by the floods in Sindh is the biggest in the province’s history. Socio-economic infrastructure in eight districts (minus Thatta and Dadu) has been severely damaged whereas over seven million people have been displaced, Bengali told participants at the meeting. Over 7,500 villages and at least 40 towns are still submerged while 2.2 million acres of agricultural land is also under water.
According to the adviser, the death toll has reached 179 with more and more people dying of diseases in relief camps across the province. Flood-related casualties also include 700 people who have been injured in different accidents. Government estimates damages amounting to Rs446.8 billion in Sindh, which include damages to crops worth Rs122 billion, Rs11.45 billion losses in the livestock sector and damages worth Rs52 billion to irrigation. Roads, housing and medical centres have also been severely damaged in the floods.
Around 4,600 educational institutes have been damaged or destroyed by the floodwater, leading to around Rs26.9 billion in losses. At least 2,250 schools have been turned into relief camps. Bengali said that the provincial government will arrange for food, sanitary supplies, tent schools and healthcare services to flood affectees for around three to six months at least under its post-flood relief management strategy. Meanwhile, the two-thirds of IDPs who will go back to their homes will also be provided with dry food rations for at least one month.
Highlighting the recovery plan for Sindh, Bengali said that several water purification machines have been installed across Sindh while another one hundred plants are to be set up with the help of other countries such as Australia.
Under the agriculture marketing strategy, the government has proposed to build grain storages, cold storages and modern agriculture markets where value added products, milk plants, fish processing, canning and private industrial estates will be set up.
The government plans to get 800 pumps, 40 bulldozers and tractors through the Provincial Disaster Management Authority.
The meeting also discussed ways and means of constructing houses for affected people.
The meeting was attended by Sindh Chief Secretary Kamran Lahari, Additional Chief Secretary Mohammad Siddiqui Memon, Secretary to Sindh CM Abdul Kabeer Kazi and others.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 15th, 2010.
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