A seven-member parliamentary delegation of Azad Jamo and Kashmir (AJ&K) led by AJ&K Assembly Speaker Sardar Ghulam Sadiq Khan called on Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah at CM House Saturday and exchanged views on issues of mutual interest.
The delegation consisted of Education Minister AJ&K Mian Abdul Waheed, Minister Works and Services Choudhry Muhammad Rasheed, Minister Social Welfare Farzana Yaqoob, Minister Food Javiad Budhanvi, Chairman Bagh Development Authority (BDA), Sardar Rasheed Qamar, ex-minister Sardar Muhammad Hussain were also present.
During discussion on floods in different parts of the country, including the Sindh province, the chief minister said the irrigation experts had roughly estimated that about 0.7 million cusec flood water would pass from the River Indus to sea. He said: “The Sindh government is ready to face the flood flow even more than estimated by the experts.”
Shah said in 2010, these experts had estimated the flood flow up to 0.9 million cusecs but he had disagreed with them and predicted more water and finally “we received flow of 1.3 million cusecs flash floods which devastated the whole right bank areas of the Sindh province.”
He said: “we have that experience and we have adopted the precautionary measures to face the flash flood even more than 0.7 million cusecs water in the River Indus.”
The chief minister said he himself had visited the vulnerable sites and embankments of the River Indus and flood protecting dykes to monitor the ongoing banks strengthen works.
He said he had passed strict instructions to the irrigation department and all other stakeholders to ensure that high flood flow, even more than 0.7 million cusecs, should be passed and disposed off into sea without causing any loss of life and property.
“We have to look after 1,380 miles long River Indus embankments as such PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has directed all PPP’s MNAs and MPAs and leaders to remain within their jurisdictions, ensure extensive monitoring of the embankments and extend their full support to the flood fighting engineers.”
Responding a question, Shah said Sindh had one of the best irrigation systems in the world.
He said though some breaches up stream in Punjab province had reduced the pressure of water to some extent but still Sindh was likely to attend high flood.
He said some time, all of sudden, the River Indus would swell due to hill torrential of Koh-Suleman and it would pose threat of flood. He said they were calculating these all possible threats and making the preparedness as par the volume of challenge.
Expressing his sorrow over the flood devastation in Punjab, the chief minister said they were standing by the people of Punjab in this difficult time and they had provided Rs 100 million for their relief.
Sindh Minister Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sikandar Mendhro, MPA Abdul Sattar Rajpar, Secretary to CM Alamdin Bullo and other officers from Sindh government were also present on the occasion.
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