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HYDERABAD, Aug 17: Badin district relief committee chairman MPA Ali Bux Shah has said the president and the prime minister have been requested to write off loans of rain-hit growers.
Talking to this correspondent at his residence on Friday evening, he said a survey of damages caused by rains and floods would be conducted in each Tapa of the district under the third phase of the relief operation.
He said in the light of the survey report, recommendations would be made to the Sindh government for compensation.
He said the relief committee had already recommended that Badin should be declared as a calamity-affected district.
The MPA said he had suspended the relief operation temporarily to know how much goods were distributed and in which areas of the district.
He said out of Rs40 million grant for Badin, goods worth Rs35 million had been bought by the district purchasing committee which was formed before the appointment of the relief committee.
He said 19 union councils of the district had suffered huge losses in rains. He said government buildings had also been damaged which needed to be repaired.
Mr Shah also denied differences with the district Nazim and said he was ready to coordinate with him in the relief operation.
He, however, attributed recent protests against the relief committee to People’s Party Parliamentarians MNA Dr Fehmida Mirza. He said she was playing politics at the cost of rain victims. He said not every PPP-backed Awam Dost Panel Nazim was opposing the committee.
PEACE COMMITTEES: Sindh Auqaf, Zakat and Ushr and Minority and Religious Affairs Minister Dr Irfan Gul Magsi has said peace committees will be established at district, taluka and union council levels throughout the province.
He said this while presiding over a meeting of Ulema of different sects at his residence here on Sunday. The meeting discussed ways to ensure religious harmony in Sindh.
The minister said the committees would be looked after by a provincial level peace committee, to be comprised of Ulema of different schools of thought. He said DCOs and DPOs would also cooperate with the committees.
He said the first meeting of the Sindh peace committee would be held on Aug 20.
The minister said recommendations of Ulema would be looked into and security would be tightened in sensitive areas.
He stressed the need for creating religious harmony among members of different sects and urged the people not to brand each other as infidels. He said the people were free to live their lives in accordance with teachings of their sects.
He maintained that Pakistan’s solidarity was linked with the supremacy of Islam and added that Islam propounded the theory of equality and brotherhood.
PPP: A large number of PPP activists, led by a member of the PPP, Sindh Council, observed token hunger strike outside the Hyderabad Press Club the other day to protest against the award of sentence to Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, by a Swiss judge.
