KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Thursday approved a Rs700 million grant for relief work being carried out in the rain-affected areas of the province and issued directives for appropriate provision of food, mosquito nets, tents, and distribution of fodder for cattle of the affected people.

He approved the amount in a meeting he chaired to review relief work in all the rain-affected districts of Sindh. The meeting was attended by CM’s Law Adviser Murtaza Wahab, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah and other relevant officials.

The CM said he, along with Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, had visited the rain-affected districts, including Karachi, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Tharparkar, Sanghar and Badin, and found people were facing problems. “We, as a government, have tried to provide relief to the affected people, but it was not enough,” he said and added that the people in rural areas were demanding fodder and mosquito nets for them and their cattle.

Reviewing the funds’ position for the relief work, Mr Shah directed the finance secretary to immediately release Rs700m and put the funds at the disposal of the senior member of the Board of Revenue (BoR) and Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA).

The BoR member told the CM that his department and PDMA would provide every kind of relief and support to the rain-affected people, but as far as provision of fodder and veterinary support was concerned, it was the job of the livestock department.

The chief secretary informed the CM that the livestock department had already set up its vet camps at Malir, Surjani, Badin, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar and Tharparkar.

He assured the CM that the livestock department would provide fodder for the cattle of the rain-affected people.

The CM also said he was working out a plan to arrange funds to support the people affected in rains and rehabilitate them at the earliest.

Building collapse

Briefing the CM about the building collapsed at Allahwala Town in Korangi, the city commissioner said that it was a 80-square-yard plot which was divided into two plots, 40 square yards each, where a ground-plus-three building was constructed.

Four persons died and seven received injuries in the incident which was constructed without approval of the Sindh Building Control Authority, he added.

The CM directed the commissioner to identify other vulnerable buildings in the area and get them vacated.

It was pointed out that Allahwala Town was a private society and had no drainage system. Water was stagnant in the area which might have caused the building collapse.

The commissioner said that not only overflow of gutters had come to an end in most of the areas, but rainwater had also been disposed of as 154 of the 194 choked drainage lines in the city had been restored, except for in a few areas, including Surjani and some villages of Malir.

The CM was told that patchwork of some of the dilapidated roads had been started and the works and services department had yet to start repair of major roads in Karachi’s district Central.

The CM directed the chief secretary to mobilise the works department at the earliest.

KMC Administrator Iftikhar Shallwani told the CM that he was working hard to serve the city. At this Murad said he wanted the city neat and clean for which the relevant departments had to work together.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2020