The News
Published Date: Jul 26, 2012
CONTINGENCY PLAN DEVISED TO COPE
Chairman, National Disaster Management Authority, Dr Zafar Iqbal Qadir on Wednesday said that a comprehensive monsoon contingency plan has been devised to cope with any toward situation in case of floods.
Addressing at a press conference here, he said the plan was devised in consultation with all stakeholders, including the provincial governments, local administration, NGOs, UN agencies and provincial disaster management authorities.
The chairman said the country received 50 per cent less rains during July despite that it was predicted that there would be 5-15 per cent more rains during July 15 to September. He said the NDMA has no rain forecast mechanism and we have to depend on data and forecast made by the Meteorological Department.
Zafar said the directives have been issued to district administration besides assigning respective duties to the concerned departments in emergency. In case of flood, safe areas have been identified and local administrations had already chalked out plan to shift the people to safer places, he said and added that emergency operational centers have also been made operational.
The NDMA chairman said there was need of over 0.4 million tents and the authority has 104,000 tents in stock. However, the tent manufacturers have assured that they have enough stock and could provide the required tents as 10,000 tents could be manufactured per day.
Replying to a question, Zafar said that Khyber-Pakhunkhwa and Balochistan governments have allocated Rs 7 billion and Rs 3 billion respectively for the PDMAs and other attached departments to cope with flood situation in emergency.He said that Punjab and Sindh were also asked to set aside Rs 5 billion each in this regard.