LAHORE - Representatives of South Punjab’s communities affected by floods 2014 have expressed a mix reaction over provincial government’s emergency response and compensation scheme.
Though majority of them were not satisfied, MPAs from the ruling PML-N assured them to address their woes by taking up the matter with the concerned ministers.
In a consultative meeting held on Tuesday, representatives of communities from four flood affected districts - Multan, Muzaffargarh, Jhang and Rahim Yar Khan - termed the government response in Jhang district good as the survey teams for damage assessment consisted of teachers while in other districts, Patwaris (revenue department’s officials) carried out this responsibility.
Two treasury MPAs, Ramesh Singh Arora and Saira Iftikhar, participated while despite being invited, no one from Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) turned up to attend the consultative meeting titled ‘Findings of floods 2014 emergency response: sharing with stakeholders’ jointly organized by Indus Consortium and Oxfam.
Saad Rasool of Chenab Forum Jhang informed the participants that 90pc of genuine flood-affectees have been compensated and credit goes to district administration as well as local parliamentarians.
“From early warning to cash compensation, everything went well in the district. District management involved communities and civil society in all phases of the emergency response. Damage assessment teams were consisted of teachers who did a remarkable job,” Saad said.
However, everything was not as rosy as it was in Jhang. Saima Bibi of Citizen’s Action Forum Multan said that many outsiders got compensation in her village while genuine affectees were ignored. “Govt officials told us that our names have been included in the list, but they didn’t make the list public.
 Finally when the list emerged, our names were not part of it leaving us in a helpless situation,” Saima said.
Qaswar Abbas, Chairman of Rangpur Kissan Society Muzaffargarh, said that the government compensation should also be extended to those whose lands have been eroded by the river. He told that 672 farmers in Tehsil Muzaffargarh could not get crop compensation because the assessment teams wrongly recorded their CNIC numbers. “Similarly, many widows and women-headed households were not listed among the affectees as the survey teams were mostly consisted of men who, intentionally or unintentionally, ignored the women affectees,” Qaswar added.
Jamshed Fareed of Help Foundation told that many farmers in all flood affected districts of could not sow Rabi crops because they were not provided with compensation and inputs like seed in time. “Affected farmers demanded from the government to compensate their crop loses and provide inputs for Rabi crop by November but many have got nothing so far,” Jamshed apprised.
Muhammad Akram, an affectee from district Rahim Yar Khan, told that despite being one of worst affected areas, his district was not included in the compensation scheme. “We feel that Rahim Yar Khan had been excluded on political grounds,” Akram said.
MPA Arora assured the flood affectees that he would take up the issues, especially the exclusion of Rahim Yar Khan, with concerned minister and, if needed, with the chief minister also. He said that it needs to be sorted out why floods always cause more damage in South Punjab than they do in central Punjab. “Perhaps we don’t take timely decisions. From decision making to implementation, government and the civil society need to work in tandem so as to minimize the loses,” Arora emphasised.
MPA Saira Iftikhar said that the women-specific grievances of the flood-affectees should be addressed on priority basis and that she will raise this issue on all government forums. Doaba Foundation’s Javed Iqbal was of the opinion that the government should plan for the future in light of the lessons learnt this time around.