Initiating projects in floods-hit areas of Sindh: NDMA approves $440 million to be sought from donors

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in collaboration with the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) and the United Nations (UN) has informally approved a $440 million to be sought from foreign donors to start the projects in flood-affected areas of Sindh.
Chairman NDMA, Dr Zafar Qadri, while talking to Business Recorder said that the projects for building shelter, water and sanitation and other basic amenities would be started in the flood-affected areas after getting the required amount of $440 million from foreign donors.
He said that on January 24, an informal meeting was held here in the Capital where the representatives of United Nation (UN), Provincial Disaster Management Authority of Sindh (PDMA) and NDMA informally approved the amount worth $440 million for the projects that would be executed in the flood-affected areas. The final approval of the informally approved amount would be taken from the coming meeting of the steering committee of NDMA.
The chairman claimed that the delay by District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMAs) of Sindh in handing over the data regarding the losses/damages by the floods 2011 to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) had delayed the Damage Need Assessment (DNA) report that was supposed to be launched in the first week of December 2011. "The DNA would be launched within next 4-5 days," Qadir added.
It is to be mentioned here that the UN-Pak flood assessment survey that was forwarded to the provincial governments of Sindh and Balochistan was rejected by the Sindh government as the provincial government was not satisfied at all with the authenticity of the survey's data.
Official sources in the PDMA Sindh told this scribe, "It is true that the provincial government has rejected the UNDP report and has declared it unauthentic as not even a single representative of PDMA Sindh had been included in the process of data compilation for the report. Secondly the reason behind the resistance in handing over the data regarding the loses and damages occurred during the floods to the World Bank and the ADB was the fact that the District Disaster Management Authorities were not getting approval from the NDMA for handing over the data based on facts and figures to be used in DNA report to the Banks."
According to the recent data available on the website of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority of Sindh, 99 percent of the displaced persons have been relocated or they have returned to their homes after drainage of water in the flood-affected areas. Almost eight lac people were reportedly living in the relief camps. Now as 99 percent people have returned to their homes, the total number of existing relief camps is 20. The data says that 6912 people are living in the existing relief camps. Total cattle head perished during the recent floods remained 0.1 million. The data says that the total number of persons who died during and after the floods remained 497. According to the data, the total cropped area damaged was 2.1 million acres and a total 9.2 million people were affected by the floods.