Rs 500,000 each for Narowal rain victims

LAHORE
On the direction of Chief Minister Punjab, financial assistance of Rs.five lakh each has been announced for the heirs of three persons who died due to rain in Narowal.
This was stated by Provincial Minister for Home Col. (Retd) Shuja Khanzada while addressing a meeting of the Flood Cabinet Committee at the Committee Room of the PDMA. Chief Relief Commissioner Punjab Nadeem Ashraf, DG PDMA Jawad Akram, Additional DGPR Muhammad Aslam Dogar, Directors PDMA Ali Anan, Muhammad Sajjad, Nisar Ahmed Sani, DG Rescue-1122 and officers of Irrigation, Transport, Information, Social Welfare and other departments concerned attended the meeting.
Two relief camps have been set up in Sialkot due to the situation arising as a result of weather change and 19 boats and 72 dewatering sets have been provided to the administration while all rivers in the province are flowing normal. The home minister said the rains would continue intermittently in the province in the coming days.
He said the Irrigation Department and district administration all over the province were keeping an eye on the flow of water in rivers, canals and nullahs and sending report of flow of water to the government regularly.
He said that all the DCOs of the province had been directed strictly to immediately remove the encroachments and hurdles in the flow of water. Shuja Khanzada said the information about weather change was being obtained from Suparco regularly.
He said that unverified news were creating panic among people and till such time the news was confirmed from the local administration, Irrigation Department, Meteorological Department or Lahore Flood Warning Centre that it should not be publicised. He said that special monitoring of flow of water was being carried out in Been, Deg, Aik, Bastar and Palkhu nullahs.
The home minister said the capacity of water in these nullahs was from 17,800 feet to 43,000 feet. He said there was a complete ban on bathing in rivers, canals and nullahs throughout the province and administration had been directed to take strict action against violators. He said that any information regarding the flow of water in rivers could be obtained from the Lahore Flood Warning Centre on phone number 99205371-73.