Daily Times

The complete data of damages caused by unprecedented floods devastated in Sindh and some parts of Punjab in the country around four months back would be compiled by December 1, National Assembly (NA) informed on Friday.

The laxity of the federal and provincial disaster management agencies came under debate in the house during question hour as the lawmakers expressed concerns that over three months on but respective agencies had operated in a vacuum of data about actual needs of affected people and provision of relief and rehabilitation support.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Murtaza Javed Abbasi informed that house that the complete statistics in this regard would be collected in the next couple of weeks. “It will be done by December 1 of this year hopefully,” he reaffirmed.

In an written reply, it was also informed to the house that management of multiple manmade and climate induced disasters to included heavy rains/snowfalls, flash floods, hill torrents, glacial lake outburst floods, urban flooding, tropical cyclones and earthquakes in AN&K, Balochistan, and GB is elaborated while the National Disaster Management (NDMA) was involved in responding two major national and international emergencies locusts and COVID-19. It recalled that despite financial crunch, the federal government always fulfilled the budgetary requirements of the NDMA so that it could better work to cope with any disaster in the country.

Furthermore, it said, the Prime Minister strictly directed to get involved parliamentarian and top judiciary in the NDMA’s affairs from time to time resulting in improvement in the overall performance of the authority.

Earlier, the legislators expressed dissatisfaction over non-availability of accurate data regarding flood survivors. Even some treasury members questioned over the failure, Dr Nafisa Shah said that a lot of aid material was pouring in from NDMA, PDMAs, charities and armed forces but it was in a hotchpotch manner and without proper assessment as to who and how many needed shelter, food or medicines and how to provide them with required things and support.

She, however, claimed that there were people who might be getting tents, food and other support multiple times, but at the same time many still awaited supplies. “Now dumping of material is going on,” she said, adding that the federal and provincial agencies should coordinate relief and rehabilitation efforts. The lawmakers highlighted that large swathes of land were still under water in Sindh where people were looking for water pumps to flush out standing water while human misery was taking its toll.

Sabir Hussain Qaimkhani, MQM member from Hyderabad said that even the funds approved by the federal government to support flood-affected families had been given on the basis BISP data that covered the ‘deserving people’, who were overwhelmingly other than the affected people.