ISLAMABAD: After the last year devastating floods, government
neither could take preventive measures nor it could be prepared for
arising the calamity again. If government would has been taken concrete
steps , the volume of prevailing loss might be reduced to some extent.
This
was said by representatives of civil society Jami Chandio , Rafiq Memon
and Sawar Bari during a press conference at National Press Club here on
Wednesday. They said that only 8 millimeter rain in Sindh have left
some 8 million people shelter less, which are rundown the editable
items , healthcare facilities and other basic amenities.
They
said that some 20 million women have been forced to live in the tents ,
whereas same number of children are waiting for death due to scarcity
of food, clean water and lack of healthcare facilities. They said that
22 districts of Sindh province have been affected due to floods out of
which 10 were declared disaster-hit districts, whereas some 1.3 million
houses were destroyed .
They said that the economy of the
province became also unstable as 88 percent of cotton crop, 22 percent
of rice cultivation and 78 percent of vegetables yield has been
destructed in Sindh, by virtue of this loss the peril of food crises
has been mounted in the country.
They demanded that Sindh is
facing the damages since 20 years regularly . They said that the big
reason of the destruction in Sindh is substandard and poor quality work
on Left Bank Out Drainage (LBOD). They demanded that a probe commission
may be constituted to hold investigation the negligence of all
responsible in this regard.
They said that NDMA and other
relief agencies are useless as they have neither any authority nor any
fund. As a matter of fact, these departments are the unattended
children of the government , which always wait for foreign aid.
“At
present there are Rs 60 billion are laying unspent in the discretionary
funds of Prime Minister but they are not being used for the
rehabilitation of flood affected people. They demanded to hand over the
amount to Sindh government so as relief work in flood affected areas
may be initiated” , they added. Online
