In a bid reported to please the presidency, the provincial bureaucracy, in a survey to ascertain livestock losses, has sidelined the losses sustained by flood survivors in Badin – the hometown of former Sindh home minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza – and highlighted the losses suffered in the Benazirabad district – the hometown of President Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Although the media and international agencies working in the flood-hit areas had reported Badin as the worst off, the Sindh Livestock and Fisheries Department has “intentionally” sidelined the outspoken minister’s constituency, as “political tensions deepen between President Zardari and his close friend Mirza”, well-placed sources told Pakistan Today.
Monsoon rains had displaced over 9 million people in the province and in the Badin district only more than 6,000 villages were inundated by rainwater, overflowing from the Left Bank Outfall Drain.
Besides displacing millions of people, the rains and the subsequent flooding also destroyed cattle stocks and thousands of acres of standing crops.
Even the UN representative, John Ging, had described the flood situation in Badin as “serious”, saying that around 50,000 acres of land had submerged.
Ging, who brings with him the experience of directing operations of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, had said this at a press conference after meeting with the Sindh Provincial Disaster Management Authority officials.
The sources, however, said that in a report compiled by the Sindh Livestock and Fisheries Department in September 2011, the officials have presented the Benazirabad district as relatively the worst-affected by rains and flooding in the province.
It is stated in the report – prepared a few days after Mirza resigned from his ministry – that during rains from August 12 to September 21, the livestock sector in the affected districts including Tharparkar, Benazirabad, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas and Badin suffered approximate losses of Rs 14 billion.
According to the break up of animal losses, the Tharparkar district is reported as the worst off with around 27,861 cattle dead or washed away, followed by 16,495 in Umerkot, 12,258 in Benazirabad, 11,991 in Mirpurkhas and only 3,098 in the Badin district.
But the highest amount of monetary losses in the report – despite the huge number of cattle heads lost in Tharparker – have been put up with the Umerkot district for Rs 3.8 billion, followed by Benazirabad with losses up to the tune of Rs 3.7 billion, Tharparkar Rs 3.3 billion, Mirpurkhas Rs 2.2 billion and Badin only Rs 800 million.
The livestock losses in other districts, including Dadu, Ghotki, Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Kashmor, Khairpur Mirs, Larkana, Matiari, Nosheroferoz, Qambar, Sanghar, Shikarpur, Tando Allahyar, Tando Mohammad Khan and Thatta also get a mention in the report.
It is stated in the Sindh Livestock and Fisheries Department report that around 26,951 small animals died in the Tharparkar district, 12,000 in Umerkot, 9,949 in Mirpurkhas, 9,003 in Benazirabad, 2,191 in Badin, 150 in Khairpur Mirs, 143 in Tando Allahyar, 128 in Sanghar, 110 in Nosheroferoz, 108 in Qamber, 63 in Jamshoro, 51 in Tando Mohammad Khan, 38 in Dadu, 30 in Thatta, 28 in Larkana, 15 in Shikarpur, two in Hyderabad while a single small animal died in Matiari.
The report also mentions that 4,495 large cattle heads perished during rains and flooding in the Umerkot district, 3,255 in Benazirabad, 2,042 in Mirpurkhas, 910 in Tharparkar, 907 in Badin, 163 Nosheroferoz, 143 in Khairpur Mirs, 68 in Dadu, 65 in Qamber, 63 in Larkana, 53 in Sanghar, 35 in Thatta, 34 in Tando Mohammad Khan, 33 in Matiari, 29 in Tando Allahyar, 18 in Jamshoro, 11 in Shikarpur, four in Kashmore, two in Hyderabad while a single large animal was reported to have died in Ghotki.
