RAWALPINDI, May 27: The civic agencies have been asked to update their contingency plans and release funds required by the Civil Defence Organization (CDO) so that it could make arrangements to meet the war emergency.

The directives were issued at a meeting held here on Monday at the CDO office. The meeting was attended by the officials of Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA), Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB), the health and police departments.

The meeting was told that all the agencies, during a similar meeting in January, had been asked to constitute rescue-cum- debris squads. “But no work has been done so far in this connection.”

The agencies were to provide one per cent of their budgets to the CDO, but they did not despite a lot of reminders, the meeting was told.

“Rawalpindi city is unsafe and nobody is protected here against any chemical or biological warfare.”

The officials, at the meeting, said neither they had got any training to deal with such an emergency situation nor had the relevant equipment.

The TMA and RCB officials told the meeting that all the sirens had been repaired and new ones installed at required places.

However, the CDO officials rejected the claim and said a large number of sirens were still out of order and no new ones had been installed.

The meeting further decided to declare the basements of commercial units as shelters in case of an aerial attack.

Meanwhile, it was decided that trenches would be dug at various places along the roads and in school compounds for which locations had been specified.

“The digging will, however, start in case of the outbreak of the emergency.”

The meeting asked the administrations of all the city hospitals to reserve 3,000 beds for a population of 0.9 million. The meeting was told that the total number of beds in the city hospitals were less than 1,000.

The police department was asked to prepare a contingency plan for the safety of important installations in the city.

The CDO was told to enrol volunteers in different localities and impart training to them.