HYDERABAD, Sept 9: The immaturity of two-year-old Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) can be gauged from its zero performance, particularly after the devastations caused in Sindh due to floods while performance of its replica at district level (DDMA) too, proved next to nothing in helping out displaced people.

The PMDA lacks monitoring, planning and practical approach and is only available on papers. It works in league with secretaries of local government, irrigation and power, works and service, agricultural, information, finance, health, social welfare, food, livestock and fisheries, education, industries and environment departments, besides its chairman. A contingency plan should've been worked out with the consent of all stakeholders to reach out to people affected by the catastrophe.

However, no Provincial Disaster Management Plan (PDMA) was chalked out in the event of Sindh floods which could be linked to the absence of training, besides their capacity building inability to respond to man-made or natural calamities.

Strangely enough, stacks of documents were prepared before the formation of the PDMA which were thoroughly read by, but its performance remained zero, even in the aftermath of flood. Budgetary allocations of the PDMA are unknown while the process of finding its software staff was still in progress.

The performance of authorities at district level in collaboration with the Irrigation Department's staff soon after the Torhi Bund breach displayed their inefficiency and clumsiness. They instead, of bringing the situation under control as per the strategy, kept diverting flood water from one town to another creating more chaos.

The PDMA alerted the people of Thatta merely an hour before the Kot Almo breach, complained the residents of Darro.

The PDMA, perhaps, appear only in releasing flood figures. A provincial cabinet member said that the Authority should have had made plans regarding the displacement of people due to floods and wondered as to why it did not.

The duty of PDMA in Sindh was only sharing figures of loss of livestock, agriculture, houses etc.

Director General, PDMA, Saleh Farooqui is hardly available to media while it's Chairman, Ghulam Ali Shah Pasha is accessible by phone.

Dawn correspondent had been trying to contact DG ever-since the floods began wreaking havoc in Sindh, but in vain.

Naseer Memon, Chief Executive of the Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO) said that all PDMAs lack will to respond to disasters of such a huge scale.

“Current disaster indicates lack of disaster management capacity in public sector institutions. No province has any flood management plan that could have had helped”, he said adding that such actions result in reactive approach by creating artificial breaches and diversions. Inundation of Dadu and Thatta, particularly are two such examples displaying individual dominated decisions in the absence of concrete flood management plan.

He called for the strengthening of PDMAs and DDMAs because such disasters turn into nightmares in the absence of adequately equipped and trained institutions and leave long lasting traumatic impact on people.

The authorities should coordinate a complete spectrum of disasters in province and formulate a risk management plan in addition to continuous monitoring of hazards, risks and vulnerable conditions besides preparing guidelines for provincial and local stakeholders regarding their roles.

Jalal Mehmood Shah, chief of the Sindh United Party was sceptical of the PDMA since the beginning and kept on recalling the relief commissioner system of the yester years. He said that the local administration was capable of handling such situations while criticized the absence of PDMA from the scene of Dadu flood.

Civil society representative Zulfikar Halepota lauding City Nazim Karachi, Syed Mustafa Kamal for preparing monitoring system asked the PDMA to do the same and slated the dominance of the Sindh cabinet ministerial interference.

The chief minister would not be visiting every place personally but could have monitored different location simultaneously, had there been scientific data and mapping system the chief minister, he said.

The National Disaster Management Authority perhaps considers only war as a disaster because of which it weren't coordinating with its sister authorities for mitigating the suffering of flood affected people, he said adding: “PDMA has become a ceremonial body and its role is being overlapped by political decisions.”