PESHAWAR, May 28: A disaster management plan proposed for the NWFP late last year is facing bureaucratic hurdles as the officials concerned have not been able to prepare a final draft, officials said here.

Work on formulating the plan which was to eventually replace the more than 25-year-old NWFP disaster management set-up was started some seven months ago.

The move, according to officials, was undertaken in the wake of last year’s catastrophic flood in the River Kabul that wreaked havoc in Nowshera, Peshawar and Charsadda districts.

Although the first draft of the new disaster management plan was ready more than five months back, the provincial authorities concerned have so far not been able to come up with a final document and place the same before the provincial cabinet for approval.

Officials said that the draft plan, prepared jointly by the home and tribal affairs department and the planning and development department has been changing hands between the home department and the provincial civil defence establishment, which has been assigned a major role under the draft plan.

Officials of the home and tribal affairs department told this correspondent that civil defence authorities had some reservations about the role assigned to their department under the draft plan.

“It is not clear as to how much time it will take to finalise the new disaster management plan as there are several complex issues which need to be taken care of,” said an official at the home and tribal affairs department.

The draft strategy, which would take 18 to 24 months to be formally implemented once approved by the provincial cabinet, entails both the prevention and mitigation plans reflecting a major shift from the existing plan of 1977, which only envisages post-disaster management work-plan.

More than 100,000 acres of rich farmland was inundated in Nowshera and Charsadda districts as a result of a high flood in the River Kabul last year.

Similarly, more than 29,000 people were killed, 37,000 persons were injured and more than 310,000 were rendered homeless in Mansehra, Battagram, Abbottabad, Shangla and Kohistan districts of the Frontier province as a result of devastation caused by the October 8 earthquake.

The new disaster management strategy, according to officials, underlines mechanisms for mitigation, prevention and preparedness through coordination between the provincial government’s line departments and their attached wings at the district level.

The fresh plan purports that the 1977 plan only caters for flood mitigation measures and as such does not adequately address the mitigation and preparedness responses in case of earthquake and other natural hazards.

“In the wake of the recent catastrophic event, the future provincial strategy mandates priority to pre-disaster aspects of mitigation, prevention and preparedness,” says the draft strategy.

The new plan envisages establishment of council of ministers to play a lead role in emergencies and supervise implementation of the over all strategy, establishment of an emergency disaster response committee to be headed by the chief executive of the province to supervise the relief and rehabilitation operations in areas affected by natural disasters and the appointment of an independent relief commissioner to be assisted by four additional relief commissioners.

In addition to that, the plan entrusts the directorate of civil defence, working under the Civil Defence Act, with the role of responding to natural disasters. The directorate will set up a ‘provincial disaster management centre’ which will be used for training, preparation and planning purposes.

Similarly, the plan also involves the establishment of disaster management committees at the district level to respond to natural disasters at the local level.

Besides, the new strategy also entails establishing a disaster management emergency fund to support preparedness and recovery measures in the province.

Line departments of the provincial government, including health, education, food, irrigation, finance, works and communication departments would be assigned to prepare their respective strategies to undertake relief measures in the event of a natural disaster.