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ISLAMABAD: A three-member judicial commission headed by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah of the Lahore High Court has held the federal and provincial governments and the Federal Flood Commission (FFC) responsible for the devastation caused by last year’s floods and recommended accountability of former and incumbent heads of the flood commission.
“There are latent structural disconnects and omissions which, by and large, stem from an indifferent and disinterested provincial irrigation and planning (I&P) department,” said the commission’s report which was released on June 30.
The commission, which also included Abdul Sattar Shakir and Shafqat Masood, said some of the issues had been on the agenda of provincial and federal governments for many years supported by substantial funds, but “no tangible results have come forth and even today there is no policy for flood plain management or hill torrents management”. The commission’s report said the FFC had not lived up to its objectives and morphed into a post office, which simply compiled flood schemes of various irrigation departments in the country.
The Punjab government’s I&P department, it said, lacked expertise, research, innovation, vision and dynamism befitting a department that had to lead the largest contiguous irrigation network in the world for the welfare and uplift of the people of Pakistan and its heavily dependent agro-economy. “The overall flood governance seems to be in disarray.”
The report quoted Pepco as having said that under the rural electrification programme, connections were extended to people living in the vicinity of the river -- active flood plains. Although no fatal accident took place on account of the electrification network during floods, the report noted that even the active flood plains were electrified by Wapda under the programme which encouraged habitation within the plains.
The report said the National Flood Protection Plan clearly laid down the foundation and a framework for the development of a flood management plan way back in 1978, but “since then the FFC has miserably failed to provide the vision and the plan it was set out to give”.
“The FFC has been reduced to a post office, stamping away flood protection schemes prepared and developed after every flood season by zonal chiefs of the I&P department.
The report said there was no master plan or holistic flood management plan which controls the scope or tests usefulness of the schemes. Besides, it added, the schemes prepared by the zonal heads lacked research, innovation and ingenuity. “The schemes which go through are usually the one that are pushed by the local political patronage, leading to a series of haphazard, unstructured and ineffective flood protection schemes at a heavy financial cost on the national exchequer.”
The judicial commission said: “The current and previous chairmen of FFC are accountable for their failed stewardship of the commission since 1977. The country does not have an integrated flood management plan; this omission is criminal and its chairmen must be held accountable for it.
“The federal government must hold a detail audit of the FFC by a panel of experts, including members from civil society, to assess the performance of the FFC since its inception. Why has the FFC failed to develop a flood management plan and continued to approve localised flood sector schemes without first assessing their need in the larger context of the flood management plan?
“The FFC needs to be pulled out of its cocoon; it is not to act as a lame secretariat or a post office for PIDs (provincial irrigation departments), but assume its real role of a principal flood sector authority of the country.
“It is recommended that the federal government must ensure that the FFC develops the first-ever National Flood Management Plan before the start of the next flood season and shares it with flood managers of the provinces.
“The Federal Flood Commission simply rubberstamps flood sectors schemes prepared at the end of every flood season by zonal officers of the irrigation department. This is not the role of FFC. The federal government must immediately pull up this apex flood institution to perform its role under the law.”
The judicial commission also criticised the federal government and said: “We notice with deep concern that the National Water Policy is still a draft and has been awaiting approval since 2005. Additionally, the National Flood Protection Plan-IV (2008-18) has not been approved. This governmental and perhaps bureaucratic inertness is most disturbing and can be listed as a cause behind the recent devastation.”
The commission called for early development of a flood plain management plan as part of the larger integrated flood management plan.
“Flood plains must be clearly zoned and demarcated. Inhabitants and built up structures within the flood plains be subjected to special regulation which ensures extra protection for their life and property,” the commission said.
