KARACHI: Foreign Minister and Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Monday asked the Sindh government to construct weather-resilient houses for the flood-affected people so that they could survive even if another natural calamity like floods or heavy rains hit the province.

Chairing a meeting to review the losses and damages of the heavy rains in the province and the measures taken by the provincial government, he said that in view of the impact of climate change there was a dire need to construct weather-resilient houses.

“We need houses that can withstand droughts, downpours, storms, floods, and such other disasters,” he added.

The meeting was attended by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, provincial ministers Sharjeel Inam Memon, Saeed Ghani, Syed Nasir Hussain Shah and Mukesh Kumar Chawla, CM’s advisers Manzoor Wassan and Murtaza Wahab, Chief Secretary Sohail Rajput and others.

PPP chief orders disbursement of cash among growers for seed procurement

Briefing the PPP chief, the chief minister said that the floods had partially and completely damaged 1.7 million houses and there was an urgent need for shelter for homeless people.

“The provincial government intends to immediately initiate rehabilitation efforts for the affected families. Therefore, we are finalising a standard for housing reconstruction for the affected people,” he added.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari suggested that the houses should be weather-resilient so that they could withstand future calamities. “But this may take more time to select the technology. So the package for construction of damaged houses must be finalised at the earliest,” he said.

The CM said that his government had so far arranged Rs220 billion, including Rs110bn pledged by the World Bank, Rs110bn by the federal government and provincial governments.

He said that the estimated funding for fully damaged houses was Rs300bn.

He said that the PC-1 of the housing project was lying with the Planning Commission. Mr Bhutto-Zardari said he would get it approved by the federal government and assured the CM that more donors would be approached to meet the total funding requirement.

Seed compensation

Mr Bhutto-Zardari directed the provincial government to start disbursement of cash to growers for purchase of seeds for the Rabi crop within the next 20 days.

“The floods have already caused huge losses to growers and now they prepared their lands for Rabi crops. They must be supported to meet the requirement of their agricultural inputs,” he said.

The PPP chairman was told that the standing crops over an area of 3.6m acres had been damaged causing a loss of Rs421bn to growers.

CM Shah said that to provide relief to farmers, it was decided to provide free inputs. “As a first step, an exercise is under way to compensate the farmers for wheat seed through cash transfers,” he said and added that Rs5,000 per acre subsidy would be given to the farmers.

To a question, the CM told the PPP chairman that the provision of subsidy on fertiliser was going to be worked out once the funding commitments from the federal government were made and added that Rs46bn were required for this intervention.

The CM said that the World Bank was supporting farmers holding land up to 25 acres. At this, the PPP chief directed the CM to give compensation for wheat seed to all farmers across the board regardless of the size of their landholding.

CM’s Advisor Manzoor Wassan told the meeting that wheat was sown over an area of 2.43m acres.

Mr Shah said that Rs45.51bn would be required if fertiliser was given to the growers, adding that DAP and urea for wheat would cost Rs39.48bn, the seed for oil crops Rs1.85bn, and fertiliser (DAP and urea) for oil seed crops Rs41.8bn.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari formed a committee comprising Mr Wassan, Sharjeel Memon and Nasir Shah to collect and verify the data of farmers so that disbursement could be made at the earliest.

He said that the farmers should be sent text messages for transferring funds to their accounts or through the mobile phone cash system.

Increased poverty

The chief minister told the PPP chief that poverty in the province would be increased.

“Multidimensional poverty is expected to increase by 10.2 percentage points,” he said, adding that among the provinces, the housing stock in Sindh had been worst affected, accounting for 83pc of the total housing damages.

The PPP chairman directed the Sindh government to implement social protection plan so that poverty could be controlled.

CM Shah said that by the end of November the expected area to be cleared from stagnant water on the right bank of the Indus would be around 90pc.

To a question, he informed the PPP chairman that water on remaining 10pc area would take at least one month to drain.

The PPP chairman directed the provincial government to speed up dewatering from low-lying areas, particularly of Khairpur district, KN Shah and such other areas on a war footing basis.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2022