AHMEDPUR EAST
PML-N MPA Qazi Adnan Farid has said that the government has been struggling to offset the crippling power crisis, saying that today the country is grappling with worst crises due to the bad governance, poor policies and unprecedented corruption of the previous government. The Punjab government wants to introduce reforms in the agriculture sector to enhance productivity and better coordination between stakeholders ultimately results in agriculture development.
The PML-n MPA expressed the views while speaking at the certificate-awarding ceremony of a five-day-long “Climate Change Awareness Building Workshop” organised by the Rural Media Network Pakistan in collaboration with Unesco here the other day. RMNP President Ehsan Ahmed Sehar chaired it while former Research Coordinator Tokyo University Japan Khalid Saeed and Coordinator RMNP Suleman Farooqi were also present on the occasion. Syed Tanveerul Hassan Bukhari acted as moderator.
Speaking on the occasion, Qazi Adnan Farid said that developing countries like Pakistan would face multi-dimension problems in future due to climate change. The PPP government made no planning to counter the negative effects of climate change during its term in power, he claimed and termed the current spending in this regard as mere peanuts. The young MPA stated that change in climate was closely linked with to the food security and poverty of a vast majority of the country population. We need thorough research on climate change and our future development planning should accommodate new challenges, he maintained. Adnan Farid said that Pakistan still depended on agriculture. Unless we have enough water reservoirs we cannot sustain our economy, he cautioned. We have to improve our water resources which are at risk because of climate change. “Premier Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif are contemplating evolving a master plan to deal with negative effects of climate change,” MPA claimed. He eulogized the services of UNESCO and RMNP for sensitizing media persons on climate change as media can focus on factors that cause environmental problems as well as its adverse impact on people.
Earlier RMNP President Ehsan Ahmed Sehar highlighted the objectives of the workshop and said that it was for the first time in the history of South Punjab that 24 journalists belonging to different riverine areas of South Punjab were benefited. He informed that participants hailing from riverine areas of South Punjab learnt modern techniques from resource persons in different sessions. Disaster reporting session was also held and participants also watched different documentaries which depicted the devastation of 2010 and 2011 floods in which highways, railway tracks and bridges were swept away by floodwater.
As a part of this training workshop the workshop participants also visited a small village located at the south bank of Indus River, some 120-km from Ahmedpur East which had submerged in floodwater. Severity of floods devastation was still visible.
Meanwhile, the RMNP-UNESCO training workshop have submitted 11 recommendations in which it demanded that the government should constitute a separate ministry to mitigate and adapt the climate change affects while curriculum at school level should be improved and updated in this regard. It also demanded the government to launch a campaign in print and electronic media to raise awareness among the public on climate change issues besides an immediate action should be initiated to keep the greenhouse gases emission at reasonable level.