President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday has a long discussion with legislators, district administration of flood affected areas and irrigation authorities on dewatering in flood affected areas of Sindh through video conferencing from Control Centre at Bilawal House Karachi and convened a special meeting on Sunday (today) to further discuss dewatering issue with Ministry of Water and Power, Wapda, experts and international consultants, appointed for this purpose.
International experts will submit the Master Plan for drainage to handle similar calamities in the provinces in future. During the Sunday's video conferencing President visited districts of Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Tando Allahyar, T M Khan, Matiari, Nausheroferoz, Badin and Khairpur and interacted with the government and MNAs, Senators, MPAs and DCOs of these areas. The conference was informed that an international assistance of Rs 18 billion has so far been committed for the flood affectees 2011.
In compliance with President's directive the NDMA and PDMA have placed details of relief measures provided to affectees so far on their website, which is open for public, it was further informed. President was also informed that an overall Master Plan is being prepared for the entire province of Sindh to deal with similar calamities in future because of fears that this cycle may continue for a few years as a result of climatic change.
President Zardari directed Wapda to prepare a similar master plan for the province of Balochistan, which has also been partially affected during recent floods. President said that he would soon be visiting the flood-affected areas once again to see for himself the relief measures taken and to be with the people in distress.
The President also called upon the affluent people of society to step forward and to generously help the poor people who had been affected by the floods so that they are also able to enjoy the Eid celebrations like rest of the people.
The President especially inquired about progress made in the distribution of Pakistan Cards among the affectees. The President was informed that additional Nadra staff was working with provincial component of Disaster Management Authority and Government of Sindh to expedite setting up more centres for processing and distribution of Pakistan Cards.
The President directed to expedite the procedure so that more people could be catered before the Eid. President during video conferencing also visited the NDMA website and inspected the availability of procurement information, which has been made available on website.
It may be recalled that NDMA while submitting its compliance report of the President's earlier directives has informed the Presidency that it worked out a comprehensive mechanism for procurements and ensuring uninterrupted supply chain management for the flood affectees. The NDMA has made available on internet all the data concerning details of vendors, purchase orders, goods procured, unit price, quantity procured, payments and even the cheque numbers issued against each payment.
The President appreciated NDMA's effort and called for the need for the other departments to follow the precedent of making all information of public concern available for easy access of the public. The President also directed all the concerned district officials to facilitate the farmers of their areas and to ensure availability of wheat seed to them for the Rabi crop 2011-12.
The President said that any delay in the distribution mechanism would adversely affect the farmer and will not be tolerated, he continued. The President was informed that dewatering process of the stagnated water has almost been completed in the most affected areas. The President also recalled his earlier directive for carrying out a comprehensive study to examine feasibility of diverting flood waters to the natural catchments areas and called for its early implementation.
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