Last month's heavy monsoon rains: ADB team briefed about public, private sector losses

Public sector infrastructure suffered Rs 1192.168 million losses while private sector suffered Rs 2 billion losses in Hyderabad district due to last month's heavy monsoon rains. The briefing was given to a delegation of Asian Development Bank (ADB) here on Monday.
The delegation comprised ADB's project officer Umer Bin Zia and Resource person Anser Ali, EDO (F&P) Ejazul Hassan. The team was briefed the about the damages and losses to public and private sectors infrastructure during heavy rains, which was attended by all EDO's, DDO's Revenue, Irrigation, Buildings, police and other lined departments at Administrator's Secretariat Hyderabad.
The briefing was also a follow-up of a meeting held last week in which all the departments were directed from provincial government to submit the damages and need assessment report about their respective department. While briefing the delegation EDO (F&P) said that losses sustained by public sector includes roads, education and health institution buildings, water and sewerage system while losses sustained by private sector include losses to houses, industrial infrastructure, goods in godowns and damages to agriculture crops.
EDO (F&P) further said that Hyderabad district received 513mm rain in 3 spells and last one was heaviest, which caused severe damages to public as well as private properties in Hyderabad rural taluka, adding that specially Qasimabad and Latifabad. He said that district administration identified 76 relief camps of which 5 camps became functional at present only one relief camp was operational at Sabzi Mandi which was accommodating 3,200 persons who were being provided food and medical facilities by the district government with the help of NDMA, PDMA, NGOs and philanthropists.
He said that an effective strategy was put in place to combat the monsoon rains, including establishment of emergency control rooms by health department, Wasa and TMAs besides a central control room at DCO office, cancellation of holidays of employees, declaring rain emergency, removing of bill boards, trimming of trees and bushes were also done. He further said that 87 pumping stations were working fully with the provision of 35 standby generators being monitored in the supervision of revenue officials, adding that de-watering machines were provided by district administrations, WASA, TMA's for immediate draining out of rain water, while uninterrupted supply of electricity was ensured by Hesco.
Umer Bin Zia said that purpose of their visit was to get facts and figures about the damages and losses of public as well as private sector through directly discussing with the concerned officers so that a better understanding of the needs and requirements could be got. He said that the submitted reports would be discussed with top officials and not only required funding would be arranged. Umer Bin Zia said that disasters have been norm but real thing is to learn from those experiences for better planning and handling them in future because due to rapid environmental changes South Asia has been declared as high risk region for disasters.
He said that during their visits of concerned flood hit districts and meetings with high-ups it was outcry that ill planned and ill designed roads and other infrastructure blocked the natural flow of rain water and roads wore a look of fish ponds adding that this thing will be brought in the notice of policy-makers at high level.
He urged for better designing of projects and better co-ordination in all the departments before execution of the development work for the sustainable development. Zia said that disaster management at district level should be strengthened and well-equipped to have an immediate response at lower level in future.