KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in his meeting with representatives of donor agencies and diplomats of different countries at VIP Lounge of Begun Nusrat Bhutto Airport, Sukkur on Wednesday disclosed that his province was in a dire need of Rs860 billion to reconstruct the collapsed houses, repair road network and revive agriculture, otherwise things would not move forward.
The meeting was attended by federal ministers, Ahsan Iqbal, Khursheed Shah, Chief Secretary Sohail Rajput, Major General Ahsan Shakeek of NDMA and others. The diplomats and donor agencies representatives who attended the meeting include Deputy High Commissioner Australia Ms Joanne Frederiksen, EU Deputy Head of Mission Mr Thomas Seller, Deputy Head of Mission Denmark Mr Simon Kjeldsen, Charge d’affairs Norway Dr Mah Noor, Italian-AICS Italy Mr Pietro Del Sette, Director Italian Agency for Development Ms Emanuela Benin, Deputy Director General IM UN, Focal Person on Flood relief assistance USAID Xerses Sidhwa, Disaster Management Specialist USAID Mr Ali Gohar Khan, Deputy Operations Managers World Bank Mr Gailius Draugelis, Development Director FCDO UK Ms Sandra Baldwin, Asian Bank’s Mr Dinesh R Shiwakoti, Mr ITO. Minister Japan and others.
The chief minister and chief secretary ginging detailed briefing to the visiting diplomats and donor agencies’ representatives said that unprecedented monsoon rains in July were 308 percent above the average and 784 percent above the normal rain in August.
Mr Shah said that the 2022 floods were bigger catastrophe than the floods of 2010 and 2011 and crisis has compounded with high flood in Indus at Guddu and Sukkur which has inundated the entire katcha area. Chief Secretary Sohail Rajput told the meeting that 24 districts with 102 talukas and 5,727 dehs have been declared as calamity hit area.
The chief minister said that Ex-gratia assistance for remaining cases on account of deaths, grant of compensation on account of injuries, houses damaged and livestock, grant of compensation for crop damage, waiver of interest on agricultural loan and rescheduling of installment payment by deferring it for at least one year, grant of subsidy on agriculture machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds to farmers of the affected areas was required immediately.
Shah said that one million tents, three million mosquito nets, two million ration bags for two months, one million jerry cane and one million kitchen sets, 500,000 plastic mats and 500,000 woolen matress and one tarpaulin was required for relief requirements.
Talking about loss of lives, Mr Shah said that 405 died and 1,074 injured, 105 million damaged houses costing Rs450 million at a rate of Rs300,000 per houses, 11,734 cattle lost for costing Rs903.96 million and 3,171,726 acres crops damaged costing Rs335.44 billion. The CM said that almost all the cash crops such as cotton, dates, sugarcane, rice, kharif vegetables, tomato, chilies, onions and others have damaged.
The visitors were told that 570 roads of 2,281.5 kilometer roads and 45 bridges costing Rs22.8 billion at a rate of Rs10 million per kilometers were required. Similarly, for Karachi’s infrastructure such as roads, bridges, sewerage system would cost Rs50 billion to repair or reconstruct.
In this way the initial assessment of damages is estimated at Rs860 billion, the chief minister told the visitors. Another similar meeting was held under the chairmanship of Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari which was attended by more diplomats and donor agencies heads and representatives. After the meeting all the guests took aerial view of the inundation of cities, towns, crops and canals.
CM visits: Sindh chief minister after his Sukkur engagements flew to Sehwan where he visited FP Bund, Manchhar Lake along with Minister Irrigation Jam Khan Shoro. The chief minister told the media that the Manchhar has the capacity to sustain 124 RL water level. He added that he has not decided to give relief breach to any bund. “A large portion of cities and towns have already inundated and we would not inundate the others,” he said categorically.
Shah said that by Sept 8 to 10, the water level in River Indus would come down, then the water from Manchhar would start flowing with gravity into the River. Presently, 15000 cusecs was flowing in River from Manchhar.
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