LAHORE: Opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf core committee member Mian Mahmoodur Rashid has released a ‘white paper’ on Punjab government’s ‘criminal negligence’ and ‘indifference’ to several flood warnings that caused deaths besides huge financial loss to the masses.

It says had the Shahbaz government acted in time and taken action on the warnings by the relevant quarters, the loss of life and property would have been minimized.

The white paper claims that civil administration of many districts had a week before the floods demanded purchase of boats and ‘dewatering’ sets but the provincial government lent a deaf ear to the demand.

Also read: Politics spills over to flood-hit areas

“The demand letters were sent to the austerity committee for review and later the government refused to release funds for the necessary items as the floods lashed these areas in the meantime.

“The administration remained a silent spectator as poor people were losing their lives and assets for want of the equipment and manpower to cope with the rising waters,” it says.

The PTI leader claims that these letters were written by the district administration of Narowal, Gujrat and Hafizabad seeking release of emergency funds up to Rs5 million. The government declined the amount and the rising waters claimed 14 lives in just Narowal district.

He laments that the government then had to announce compensation worth Rs22.4 million for the heirs of the victims.

Had the government released the funds all those precious lives could have been saved while the extra funds used could be diverted to some activity, he adds.

The report claims that the flood warnings were not only sent to the Shahbaz government but also to the Punjab and National Disaster Management Authority but nobody took any action to get the damaged boats repaired.

Mr Rashid says that Rescue 1122 had the responsibility of getting these boats repaired as the service was facing severe funds shortage due to alleged indifferent attitude of the chief minister towards the department.

In the recent budget, the funds for this department had been reduced to Rs1,450 million from Rs1,652 million the previous year, he claims.

“Reducing the funds of an emergency service is a criminal act as everyone knows that Punjab has to face floods every year. Instead of introducing Metro bus service in major towns, or laptop schemes it would have been better diverting the funds towards emergency and relief activities.”

The opposition leader claims that some government officials told him that during VVIP visits in the flood- affected areas all relief work came to a standstill. They were of the view that it would be better if these VVIPs shorten or lessen their trips so that the civil administration could work in a better way and provide the much-wanted relief to those who had lost everything in the flood and even did not have food to live on.

He also quotes the officials as saying that some TMAs had sought temporary recruitments to cope with the emergency situation but the provincial government not only refused to release funds for the purpose but also barred the TMAs from generating funds for the purpose.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2014