January 08, 2009	Thursday	Muharram 10, 1430

HYDERABAD, Jan 7: MPA Pir Amjad Hussain Shah Jilani has said that the chief minister has sanctioned Rs100 million for relief and rehabilitation of the people whose villages were inundated by a breach in a Wasa-operated water reservoir on Dec 10, 2008.

The MPA, who also heads the District Relief Committee, said at the committee’s meeting at the DCO office on Tuesday that the affected villagers would soon receive compensation.

He said that survey teams formed by the district revenue department had completed their work and submitted reports, which revealed that 1,408 families were displaced, 255 thatched and bricked houses were damaged, eight cattle died and there were 37 other losses from the flood caused by the breach.

He said that total losses examined by the teams came to approximately Rs8.666 million and the provincial government had formed a fact-finding committee headed by former secretary of services, Shafiq Ahmed Khoso, with former DCO Ali Ahmed Lund and special secretary of local government, Suleman Chandio, as members to look into causes of breach, which affected Sajan Detho, Khan Mohammad Mahar, Wahid Palari and Misri Shaikh villages.

He said that the committee had been assigned the task to fix responsibility of the incident and assess losses to both public and private properties within 10 days but its report was still awaited.

He said the committee wanted to provide compensation to the affectees within shortest possible time and it could not torment the affected people in agony any more due to sluggish pace of concerned officers and organisation.

He said the committee was also working to provide relief to the affectees of 2006 heavy rains and a summary requesting allocation of Rs14 million had already been forwarded to the provincial government in this regard. The government wanted to provide relief to the poor, he added.

He expressed sorrow over tragic incident of collision between an oil tanker and a railway train at Palijani Phatak near Detha railway station a few days ago, which resulted in three casualties and injuries to 23 people, including four journalists, damage to railway quarter, police picket, cattle farm and fodder.

He directed the revenue officers to examine losses and submit a detailed report on the incident, with recommendation for compensation according to losses so that families of the deceased and other affected people could be provided timely relief.

He expressed eagerness for establishing the District Disaster Management Cell within district government with all required equipment and trained staff to cope up with such incidents and asked the officers to work out the plan.