By Syeda Masooma
–Senators say lack of coordination between govt departments primary cause of inefficiency in dealing with disasters
ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee for Information Technology and Telecommunications on Monday highlighted that distaste management authorities are unprepared to deal with emergencies and stressed upon the need for using information technology effectively deal with untoward situations.
An meeting of the committee was held to discuss the way information technology can be used to effectively prevent and manage disasters. Representatives of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Pakistan Air Force (PAF), Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), National Health Emergency Preparedness & Response Network and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) attended the meeting.
Committee Chairperson Senator Rubina Khalid pointed out that the lack of coordination between authorities mandated to deal with disasters is the most common reason why disasters are not effectively prevented or managed. To this, an NDMA official said that while the government fully supports the authorities in the aftermath of a disaster, there is a dire need of support in prevention measures.
PAF official Air Commodore Nadeem Shinwari said that they have several cell monitoring units that constantly monitor risks of floods, earthquakes and other such natural calamities but they have never been approached by NDMA for any information.
Responding to the air commodore’s complaint, an NDMA representative said that they have a liaison officer with all three armed forces as well as other bodies like NHDA and they constantly gather relevant data so that people who are likely to get affected can be informed and evacuated in time.
“NDMA Act 2010 defines that our department is the lead coordinating body,” he said.
Rubina Khalid then told him that his authority was not being questioned but the purpose of the event was to come up with strategies to improve coordination between government departments.
Senator Kulsoom Parveen said that despite the tall claims of various departments, there is a lack of proper method of collecting, keeping, or communicating data of affected people.
“I remember [after the 2005 earthquake] 130 girls were brought to live in Taxila, who then increased to 30 and then they disappeared with no one being aware of their whereabouts,” she said, adding that there are still 22 women living at Neelam Hospital who had their backbones injured in that earthquake.
She further said, “They beg during the day and go back to the hospital to sleep for the night. We still have no record or data of their relatives, or the total death toll, injured, etc.”
Representatives from NDMA, National Health Emergency Response Network, and PMD agreed that although there are functioning and operational centers to deal with such emergencies, there is still a long way to go before those facilities can be brought up to international standards or before all departments can start to work harmoniously together.
Senator Faisal Javed gave the example of ‘Ontario alert’ model, whereby the disaster prevention authorities could collect data, which could be used by telecommunication authority to communicate to the at-risk people, armed forces and other rescue institutions in the form of push messages so that they can then make a framework to evacuate those people, and the health centers can prepare for the aftermath.
To this, the representative from National Health Emergency Response Network, Dr Samina, said, “We have already established the framework but we still require the government’s assistance in developing the GIS network.”
The committee session concluded with the chairperson asking the attendees to prepare a detailed and practical report on how to improve coordination, operational capacity building, and better utilisation of resources so as to improve preparedness to deal with such emergencies.