Government seems oblivious to climate change
The ongoing torrential rains are the outcome of the climate change that Pakistan has yet to acquire the capability to cope with. The mega floods in 2010 affected 21 million people leaving nearly 2,000 dead while inundating a third of Pakistan. Tens of thousands of people had to live in emergency camps for months. Two years later, rains and floods once again caused widespread havoc. According to National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the recent rains have led to 80 deaths, mostly in South West and Northwest of the country that includes Balochistan, KP and AJK.
By now it should have become clear to those in power that the changes in weather pattern are not a temporary phenomenon but a long term headache. Little has however been done so far to acquire the ability to reduce the impact of climate change. The NDMA which was created in the wake of the earthquake in 2005 is unable to handle any major disaster, particularly one with a widespread impact.
The problem with the ruling parties is that they are fully concentrated on projects that can fetch them votes in the next elections. Long gestation projects that involve creation of adequate response systems and strengthening of existing institutions find no place on the governments’ agenda. Whenever there is a natural disaster, the governments respond reactively. The stock response is to call in the army and seek international help. Acute problems that cannot be resolved through such responses are already manifesting themselves. Water shortage is one of these. This would aggravate with the ongoing fast depletion of subsoil water and melting of glaciers caused by rising temperatures. There are no institutions or think tanks assigned the task of working out solutions for the existing problems as well as those likely to emerge in days to come. The population time bomb continues to tick without anyone in the ruling circles displaying the least concern about it. The common man will have to pay the price for the lack of vision in political leadership.
One of the many drawbacks of democracy is the focus on getting elected, forcing the governments to create facts on the ground that assist in winning the next election. Long term needs are forsaken for the sake of short term vested interest of being elected. In Pakistan this problem becomes even worse, the short term facts created on the ground are not determined by order of priority but by the extent and the nature their visibility and how much they fetch by way of kickbacks in the shortest possible time.
Pakistan's core problems are unemployment, health provision, education, corruption, law and order and justice. When borrowed money is spent on creating icons that help in winning elections and line the pockets of the rulers with massive kickbacks; after debt servicing, there is never any money left to address the core issue of the masses.
To change the decades old status quo of shoddy and corrupt governance, either the rulers somehow come to their senses or the electorate who vote for them time and again, through some miracle come to their senses. The idea of rulers who profit to the tune of billions coming to their senses is wishful thinking, it will never happen. We are left with the sole option of the electorate coming to their senses by doing way with their suicidal tendency. Can we realistically blame the rulers when we deliberately elect corrupt rulers time and again, fully knowing their nature and what they they have done in the past?
A very large part of the 30 maf which flows below Kotri every year is from the tributaries of the Indus river, namely Kabul, Chitral, Swat, Haro and Soan, they all join the Indus just above the Kalabagh site, and it is only Kalabagh dam that can utilize a major part of this flood water for storage and for generation and also save south Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan from the annual floods.
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