Addressing the people in flood-stricken Gwadar and Pasni areas in Balochistan, which he visited on Saturday, President General Pervez Musharraf did well to announce all-out rehabilitation efforts and a relief package for the affected people. Notably, the measures he unfolded on the occasion included interest-free loans for farmers, which should prove all the more timely and effective in remedying their plight to a certain extent. Moreover, he is also reported to have reviewed the relief and rescue efforts being done and directed all the concerned officials immediately and unhesitatingly to mobilise relief and rehabilitation work, in order also to repair the widespread damage caused by heavy rains and devastating floods.
The rain and flood havoc in Balochistan, unfortunately, occurring in the midst of confusion and turmoil, he also rightly availed of the opportunity to rule out any military operation in the province, assuring the people of the government's focus on realising unprecedented development in the province.
Needless to point out, as natural calamities, like floods and rain, not only cause widespread misery, including losses of human life and properties, due notice seems to have been taken of making compensating for them to the possible extent.
This should adequately explain his announcement of Rs 100,000 for each of the bereaved family, while pointing out that the government would provide financial assistance to people who lost their homes and cattle in the floods. Viewed in this perspective, the President's announcement that Zarai Taraqiati Bank will extend interest-free loans to farmers of flood-affected areas should provide some consolation to those affected thereby. Backward as Balochistan happens to have remained in agriculture, his assurance that all-out efforts for rehabilitation, repair of infrastructure damaged from rains and floods on priority basis, should minimise the intensity of losses to the farming community too.
The same should hold good for his assertion that all disciplines of Pakistan Army are engaged in relief and rescue efforts in the flood-affected areas. It will also be noted that the President pointed out that the government was ensuring that all affected people were provided with immediate necessities, including food, blankets and medicines.
Similarly, reassuring should be the emphasis the government laid on completion of mega projects like Gwadar deep-sea port and Mirani dam, saying these would step up the pace of development in Balochistan, thereby, bringing the province on a par with the developed parts of the country.
One hopes that the federal and provincial agencies engaged in the task of relief and rehabilitation will honestly and diligently pursue in the challenging task.
The promptness with which the aid and rehabilitation task has been undertaken and the President's initiative to lead it from the front is indeed commendable and it is hoped that all the measures that have been announced would be implemented with the same spirit of urgency.
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