The Sindh government completely ignored Badin district and Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD), the biggest drain in the province, in the Sindh Flood Contingency Plan 2011, rendering 1.2 million people homeless in what seems to be a man-made catastrophe.
A study by Pakistan Today based on the contingency plan, interviews with officials and civil society activists, revealed that if the government had learnt any lesson from the epic floods of 2010, had identified vulnerable embankments and carried out repair work in the LBOD prior to the monsoon season, the losses could have been considerably minimised. “None of the extremely decimated embankments in the LBOD, which had been badly affected by the floods in 2010, were repaired prior to the monsoon rains and led to the development of breaches in the current monsoon season.
There are around 40 breaches at present and not even a single one has been plugged so far,” Dr Akash Ansari, chief executive of Badin Rural Development Society (BARDS), an organisation actively working in flooded areas of the district, told Pakistan Today. He also held the provincial Irrigation Department and Sindh Irrigation Development Authority (SIDA) responsible for the criminal negligence which wreaked havoc in the area. Around 1.2 million people have been made homeless by the floods and there is an extreme danger of an outbreak of cholera and other waterborne diseases in the relief camps.
The food being provided to the flood-affected people is either inadequate or substandard, he said. Ansari said 90 percent of the cotton crop, 80 percent of paddy and 100 percent of tomatoes had been destroyed. Moreover, the Sindh government’s Floods Contingency Plan 2011 reveals that Badin district had been completely missed in the contingency plan. No mention of the vulnerable points in Badin, including the LBOD embankments, were made or identified in the contingency plan.
The word ‘Badin’ occurred in the plan only in regard with telephone numbers of the control room and the DCO office.
“I am shocked to know that the LBOD, the biggest drain in the province, remained out of the survey and it speaks of the negligence of the authorities,” Ansari said.
“Had the embankments of the LBOD been repaired prior to the current monsoon season, the losses would have been negligible,” the chief executive of the organisation, which is also partner of the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, said. He added that negligence on the part of the authorities had converted the natural calamity into a manmade disaster.
When Sindh Irrigation Additional Secretary Aslam Ansari was contacted, he said there were funds for the repair of the LBOD embankments and SIDA was responsible for the repair. “What I know is that funds were allocated to the SIDA and only its MD can give a briefing on the details,” he said.
SIDA Managing Director Ahsan Leghari did not comment and asked to be contacted later as he was busy. However, repeated attempts to contact him failed as he did not receive the phone.
