Sindh govt to compensate rain-hit people for human, material losses: Sharjeel

The civic infrastructure of urban areas and crops in rural parts of the province have been seriously damaged as Sindh has received unprecedented rains in the ongoing monsoon season.

Sindh Information and Transport Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon said this in a statement issued on Friday. He said the districts of Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Dadu, Malir, Umerkot, Matiari, Tando Mohammad Khan, Badin, Thatta and Sujawal had been most affected due to heavy rains, and the Sindh government had been continuing with its rescue and relief efforts in the rain-affected areas.

He added that members of the provincial cabinet had been supervising the relief activities in the affected districts of the province with the Provincial Disaster Management Authority dispatching tents, rations and other necessary items and machinery to the affected areas for the rescue and relief work.

Memon said the deputy commissioners posted in the affected districts had been given Rs3 million each on an immediate basis as per the directives of the Sindh chief minister to carry out emergency relief work. The administration of the relevant districts had been asked to set up makeshift shelters in the buildings of the government-run schools for housing the rain-affected people, he added.

The information minister announced that the Sindh government would compensate for the human and material losses in the province due to heavy monsoon rains, and in this regard, the CM had asked the divisional commissioners to collect data in their respective jurisdictions.

Memon said the CM had also asked the Sindh local government and health departments to take necessary precautions to save the health of the rain-affected people from infectious diseases, including malaria, dengue and diarrhoea. He explained that the Benazir Income Support Programme would also be used by the government to help out the rain-affected communities.

PTI’s SOS call

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Sindh president and former federal minister Syed Ali Zaidi gave an SOS call on Friday to the chief ministers of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Punjab to send their Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMA) to help the flood-affected people of Sindh and Balochistan.

“The people of Sindh have suffered immensely from the continuous rains of the past three days, but shamefully there is little or no response by the Sindh government and the Sindh PDMA,” he said.

In the last 24 hours, over 220mm of rainfall has been witnessed, resulting in a massive loss of life and property. Zaidi blasted the Sindh PDMA for being AWOL (absence without leave) whenever a disaster struck in Sindh, as well as the Sindh government’s inadequate preparations for the monsoon season for the last 15 years. The Sindh government had decided to release Rs3 million immediately to all the rain-affected districts for setting up relief camps and providing food, mosquito nets, medicines and other necessary items to the affected people, but this amount was meagre and peanuts given the scale of the catastrophe, he said.

The PTI leader demanded that Sindh be declared a disaster area and that the armed forced be quickly mobilised for rescue and relief operations, as the people had lost hope in the provincial government to do what was required at this time.

He noted that the people in flood-affected areas were suffering from gastrointestinal diseases and needed essential medicines and clean drinking water. Besides this, he added, there was a requirement for tents and food.

The former federal minister blamed the alleged corruption of the PPP government under the leadership of Asif Zardari and Bilawal Zardari for the poor state of emergency service throughout Sindh. “Sadly, their greed has no limit and the real losers are the people of Sindh.”