ISLAMABAD, Jan 16: A number of allied offices of nine federal ministries and their records were destroyed in the fire which turned the white building of Shaheed-i-Millat Secretariat into a black concrete structure.

The officers and staff of various ministries in Shaheed-i- Millat secretariat on Wednesday reported in their parent ministries and were advised to look for alternative offices to recompile the lost record.

A press release issued by the interior ministry said no confidential record of religious and Jihadi organizations or of Taliban was dumped in the building.

The spokesperson said only one out of 33 sections of the ministry was located in the building and only some old record was stored there.

Sources said two offices of the FIA coordinating the investigation of corruption cases with the National Accountability Bureau were also destroyed.

Agriculture ministry perhaps lost the most valuable record. It had a huge data bank on agriculture, starting from British India and then from 1947 onwards. It housed three major wings of fisheries, livestock and agricultural economic indicators that were burnt to ashes.

Agricultural monitoring, price indicators, crop trends and output and input details were kept in around 200 computers and a library. They were told that some of them would be accommodated at the offices of Pakistan Agricultural Research council (PARC) and National Agricultural Research Council (NARC) while new office would be made available in Blue Area.

The services management division was keeping the computerised personal record of all federal government officials including annual confidential reports and accounts.

The education ministry’s record on education sector reforms (ESR), National Education Foundation and Higher Education wing have been completely destroyed.

Education sector reforms project was launched by the military government two years back. All records relating to the implementation of these reforms, besides all records relating to education sector NGOs and CBOs, their activities and facilitation were burnt to ashes.

The record of federal land commission relating to the distribution of land among peasants and haris was destroyed. Water sector and irrigation related material and files of the water and power ministry were also destroyed. The main record room of the ministry of water and power was also located in the building in addition to the old records of Wapda. The entire water wing of the power ministry was destroyed, an official said.

Around 500 telephone lines of National Telecommunication Corporation were also reduced to ashes. The building had no telephone lines of the PTCL.

Sources in the CDA said the record pertaining to allotment of plots to bureaucrats in the new sectors of the capital was also stored in the building.

Information gathered till going to the press revealed that the record of the following offices located in the Shaheed-i-Millat Secretariat was destroyed:

Federal Land Commission, Management Services Wing, Management Consultants of the Cabinet Division, Department of Communication Security, Pakistan Public Administration Research Centre, Abandoned Properties Organization and Board of Trustees of Abandoned Properties, Scientific and Technological Research Division of ministry of Science and Technology (7th and 8th floors), National Conservation Strategy Unit (5th floor), Ozone Cell (6th Floor), Economic Wing of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (9th floor), Ministry of Interior.