KARACHI: President Asif Ali Zardari directed the provincial government on Monday to focus its efforts on saving human lives in rain- and flood-affected areas by ensuring an uninterrupted supply of food and safe drinking water to the flood-affected people till their rehabilitation.
At a briefing on the flood situation and relief and rehabilitation activities in Sindh, at the Bilawal House here, Mr Zardari said that no excuse would be tolerated for any slackness by top government officials in the supply of food and water to rain and flood victims.
The briefing was attended by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, National Assemly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza, Commerce Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Nazar Mohammad Gondal, provincial ministers Pir Mazhar, Murad Ali Shah, Agha Siraj Durrani, Nadir Magsi, Sharjeel Memon and Sassui Palejo and senior officials of federal and provincial governments.
Briefing journalists about the meeting, president’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the president had directed senior government officials in each affected district to supervise and coordinate distribution of relief goods received from the government, international agencies, local and foreign NGOs and philanthropists.
For the purpose, 15 senior officers of the provincial government were designated for the most-affected districts with a directive that these officers would be personally responsible for ensuring smooth operation of rescue, relief and rehabilitation of flood-hit people in respective districts assigned to them.
A special control room has been also set up in the Bilawal House to keep a watch on relief activities.
The room has been linked to all DCOs and the president will be able to hold video conferences with provincial government officials and DCOs and personally monitor relief and rehabilitation activities. “I will be monitoring the monitors,” the president was quoted as saying.
Mr Babar said the president had planned to stay in Karachi for some days to personally monitor flood relief activities.
Stressing the need for saving lives by ensuring food and water availability, the president said that if needed, helicopters and boats might be leased from other countries for the purpose.
The president said the next priority should be draining out stagnant water and ordered that discharge capacity of existing drains and nullahs be enhanced and all obstructions removed by deploying heavy machinery already available with different departments.
The president was informed that more than 7.5 million people had been affected by rain and floods and standing crops on over 2 million acres had been damaged.
About 74 per cent of cotton crop and 26 per cent of rice crop and overall 47 per cent of major crops have been destroyed. The damage to cotton, rice and sugarcane crops has been estimated at Rs156 billion.
The president ordered that a permanent solution be found for draining out water from Badin which had been experiencing the problem for a long time.
He also stressed the need for drawing up alternative plans for draining out water from lower areas of the province to prevent its accumulation.
The meeting was informed that a relief package had been prepared by the provincial government which had sought 50 per cent contribution from the federal government to cope with the disaster.
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