PAKISTAN has a natural riverine system and lakes with a man-made network of dams, reservoirs and canals receiving water from snow clad northern mountains. Whenever monsoon rainfalls are above average, the rivers overflow, causing floods. The country has been facing these floods since 1950.

The magnitude of devastation differed in each case, depending upon the extent of rainfall but each time immediate relief and rehabilitation work was promptly undertaken by the state institutions without much ado including 1992 flood which caused extensive and widespread damages but somewhat lower than the present flood..

This time around the state machinery having been emaciated over the years failed to react. This is evident from a report in dated August 16 which quotes a junior level military officer saying: “we are primarily tasked with bringing stranded people out of water. Once we have done that they expect us to provide them with food and shift them to safer locations like Sukkur. Frankly speaking, we don't have the means. Where is the civil administration”?

As regards civil government at higher echelon, the response is that of a hapless and confounded spectator unsure of the measures required of it and making appeals to the international community for relief and assistance. What is more interesting is that the prime minister met with the leader of Pakistan Muslim League(N) Mian Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad on August 14 and announced formation of an independent commission of notables for administering financial assistance from philanthropists at home and abroad.

Is it not an admission of the fact that the government is not competent to deliver while the philanthropists including international community have serious doubts about the scrupulousness of our elected leaders sitting on both sides of the aisle of the parliament?

Eighteen years ago, flood had caused devastation in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan province) and all the four provinces. According to the project document of the government as many as 1200 persons lost their lives, 960,000 houses were destroyed and 4.8 million inhabitants affected. Public infrastructure such as highways, bridges, roads and rail network, about 900 miles of irrigation canals, water channels and flood control locations along the Indus river, valued at $0.5 billion; private property including houses, standing crops, livestock, poultry and fish farms valued at $1.9 billion were destroyed.

The first response was to provide cash relief to the affectees, based on the belief expressed by Shantay Devarajan of the World Bank that “most people affected by the floods are poor and now they are losing their homes, livestock and assets----cash transfers are a way of enabling these people to rebuild their lives. It also helps stimulate markets which might have been depressed”

Accordingly, the relief package included a cash compensation of Rs50,000 per family which lost an income earning member and a cash compensation for every house destroyed in the floods. Other relief measures included a one year exemption from payment of income tax, land revenue in the flood affected area, one year suspension of servicing of agricultural loans and interest free loans for purchase of seeds and fertilisers. The cost of relief measures aggregating Rs4 billion was borne by the government.

The second response was to prepare a PC-1 for rehabilitation and reconstruction for the public sector infrastructure. According to the project implementation report of the World Bank” the PC-1 was prepared within a record period of one week and necessary approvals were granted quickly”. The PC-1 included two parts. Part-1 included reconstruction of roads bridges, irrigation drainage and flood protection works, school and health facilities at a cost of $397 million and was offered for external assistance. Part-II covered the remaining sectors costing $86 million, to be implemented by the government from it's own resources..

Despite some failures, the World Bank noted that, “the project's successful outcome was primarily attributable to a flexible sectoral plus “demand driven” design that did not pre-determine provincial or agency shares; instead it encouraged competition for project resources by allowing access to credit as a first come-first- served basis and continued funding for sub-projects being made conditional on satisfactory implementation agency performance and good coordination, follow-up and implementation support by the supervisory consultants”.

Relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction are possible only if the lessons learnt from the 1992 floods are followed.

First, instead of tackling the grave challenge in an uncoordinated and fragmented manner through various agencies as has been witnessed up to now, the whole operation should be centralised in a single agency such as Planning Commission for systematic coordination with all agencies involved.

Second, the planning and development departments in the provinces should be made coordinating focal points.

Third, the Planning Commission must immediately prepare a PC-1, based on the preliminary estimates of the damages from the provinces and federal agencies.

Fourth, the Planning Commission and the finance division must review the Public Sector Development Programme for 2010-2011 for diversion of funds for the proposed project.

Fifth, the remnants of the state institutions under the old governance system which existed in 1992 having been emaciated further, there is an urgent need to make DCO's personally responsible for implementation of all project activities in the district for reporting back to planning and development departments and the Planning Commission in order to avoid inter-provincial and inter-agency competition for accessing the funds; satisfactory performance of the implementation agency should be the sole criterion for qualifying for funding of sub projects.