MIRPURKHAS: The Mirpurkhas district administration has failed to clear Jhuddo taluka, the worst flood-hit area in the district, of stagnant floodwaters, forcing thousands of calamity-stricken people to continue to live in makeshift huts along roads and on patches of higher ground under open sky and without government help.

Leaders of the flood victims Khalid Arain, Ali Nawaz Shah and Fazlur Rehman Memon told Dawn on Wednesday that Mirpurkhas deputy commissioner had presided over a meeting of engineers of irrigation department and drainage division about 10 days back, which had decided to plan a strategy to ensure drainage of floodwaters from the district.

The meeting had also decided that the district administration would arrange and install dewatering machines to drain floodwaters from the worst affected areas, particularly Jhuddo and other talukas, while the drainage division would make available excavators and other machinery to make breaches for releasing floodwaters and digging small drains to channelise the water to the nearest drains or canals, they said.

However, they said, despite passage of 10 days nothing had been done to enforce the meeting’s decisions, which had created hope among the calamity-hit people for return to their villages and houses.

They said that thousands of flood victims continued to live in makeshift huts along roadsides without receiving government help and relief goods. They had lost all hope in the government owing to indifferent attitude of the district administration’s officers, they said.

They said that floodwaters were slowly receding through Dhoro Puran but still the displaced victims could not return to their houses.

The district administration’s inefficiency would also hit wheat sowing target in Jhuddo taluka as farmers would not be able to sow the crop this year, they said.

Floodwaters were standing on a large area in Sindhri, Kot Ghulam Mohammad and several parts of Digri taluka while rainwater of Sanghar district continued to flow into Kangal Lake in Sindhri taluka, they said.

They demanded Sindh chief minister, chief justice of Sindh High Court, Sindh minister for irrigation and National Disaster Management Authority ensure immediate draining of floodwaters with the help of machinery so that affected families could restart their lives in their houses and villages and cultivate their farmland.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2022