Reconstruction of flood-hit areas: minister for completion of work within two months

Federal Minister for Water and Power, Syed Naveed Qamar has asked all the provinces to expedite restoration and reconstruction plans of flood affected areas and drainage system and complete it within two months in order to ensure safety in the coming flood season.
He also asked that all the necessary measures may be taken by the concerned authorities keeping in mind problems experienced during last monsoon season, so as to avoid such problems in next monsoon season. He made these observations while presiding over the post-flood inter-provincial meeting of the Federal Flood Commission held on Monday and to review the restoration and repair of irrigation system of flood affected.
The meeting was attended by Secretary of the Ministry, DG Met Office, Provincial irrigation secretaries, representatives from NDMA, Army Engineering Corps, Wapda, Planning Commission, Communication division and senior officials of the Federal Flood Commission.
Qamar also asked that the abadies should not be allowed to settle in future in low lying areas and the discharge capacity of LBOD and other should be revisited and redesigned for enhancing discharge capacity keeping in view the past experience. The minister asked the provinces and federal line agencies to adopt the measures as suggested by the Federal Flood Commission in order to avert possible damages in case of unexpected rainfalls and floods during next monsoon season 2012.
They were also asked to ensure proper co-ordination with FFC and Provincial Disaster Management Authorities. He said that he would himself visit all the four provinces to review the restoration and reconstruction work done by the provinces. The minister also stressed the need for timely submission of flood safety schemes so that funds may be released well before time.
Earlier, the provincial secretaries briefed the meeting on the progress of the restoration work and flood safety schemes in their respective provinces. They informed that most of the schemes have been completed and remaining will be completed shortly. Member Wapda informed the meeting that the reconstruction work of RBOD-I and III have been completed about 85 %.
The meeting observed that 23 districts of Sindh, 4 in Punjab and one in AJK badly affected during the last rains/flood season. The area affected during flood/rains 2011 was about 6.264 million acres, villages 34,285, lives 488; 1,287,646 houses, cropped area of about 2.411 million acres and population of about 9.206 million.-PR