A season of devastation
The recent floods in Pakistan were reported to be the most devastating in the country’s history. It was preceded by a few weeks by unprecedented rains in Sindh, rendering the Province a disaster area even before the later calamity. The brunt of human and material cost for the season’s havoc and mayhem was thus borne both by the Punjab and Sindh, the only silver lining of sorts being that Sindh, to an extent, escaped the full brunt of the later floods and thus from double jeopardy. The overall collateral damage has been a grievous blow to the economy of the country, while the short-term residual effects will retard the progress of the economy.
An accurate estimate of the material damage may be basically an exercise in futility but to understand the full implications to the economy (and thus be in a position to take comprehensive remedial measures to cope with the situation) requires that we may carry out the estimation process as best as we can. There has been considerable damage to both private property and to the infra-structure of the public sector, these have to be calculated separately. The areas included in any survey must be the flood-affected delta lands of Punjab and Sindh as well as Azad Kashmir.
By all accounts, about 24,000-25,000 villages have been badly affected, this is only 10% of the quarter million villages and settlements that have had flood waters engulf them. About one million families have suffered damage in various categories, broadly this includes damage to houses, crops, animals and agricultural implements as well as tube-wells. In many cases, damage has also included personal effects, furniture, TV, radios, sewing machines etc. Looking on a gross estimate basis, the badly affected villages can be also sub-divided into 6,000 villages being 500 families – villages, 10,000 being 400 families — ones and 8,000-10,000 being 300 families — villages/settlements, making about one million families affected in total. Roughly, there has been 33% acute damage @ Rs 100,000 (US $ 4000), 33% moderate damage @ Rs 50,000 (US $ 2000) and 33% light damage @ Rs 25,000 (US $ 1000), making a grand total of US $ 2.35 billion (@ US $ 1320 million plus US $ 660 million plus US $ 335 million i.e. around US $ 2310 million).
In the public sector, about 2000 kms of roads have been washed away or damaged irretrievably including loss of complete bridges, culverts, drains, etc while another 4000 kms or so have been badly affected, particularly Farm to Market roads. There has been enormous damage to other public sector infrastructure including telecommunications, link canals, water supply, sewerage, electricity, railways, schools, medical facilities and transportation. Looking at the National Highway Authority (NHA) estimates at Rs 14 million per km (for a two-way carriage road) or about US $ 560000 per km, the repair bill for roads, bridges etc should come to about US $ 2.5 billion, with about US $ 1.5 billion for the rest, the grand total on a conservative estimate for the collateral damage to the public sector is about US $ 4 billion. Thus on a broad basis the economy has suffered about US $ 6 billion immediate damage. One confesses that the estimates are made on a broad basis and could be much higher than projected.
While the immediate damage has been thus estimated, the medium-term damage to the economy will come from two primary factors, the loss of a substantial portion of the cotton crops and a quantity of the rice. Along with the late (and disturbed) sowing of wheat as well as the loss of animals, tractors, agricultural implements, seeds, tube-wells etc, our farmers who were nett sellers of foodgrains (i.e the surplus after catering for personal food supplies) would become nett buyers of food supplies, with spiralling prices compounding the situation. With lack of raw cotton, textile mills would operate at below minimum operations, thus affecting from teeth to tail the most dominant part of Pakistan’s economy. This would mean that unemployment would reach through to other industries as an economic chain-reaction sets in. This will certainly lead to social ills followed by deterioration of the law and order situation, public disorder may lead to a state of anarchy.
The government, particularly the PM, has very rightly put his chest beating about refusing to go to international financial institutions with a begging bowl on a back burner and has requested for emergency financial aid from the IMF and the World Bank through the Finance Minister. As our export sector earnings are badly hit by lowered sales of raw cotton, rice, cotton textiles and cotton textile products, the foreign exchange deficit will grow larger thus affecting GoP’s ability to purchase wheat, palm oil, crude oil etc as well as chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, machinery spares etc which are necessary to maintain production momentum. This will have a Catch-22 effect through a broad spectrum of the economy, seriously undermining sustainable growth and deepening the anticipated economic crisis.
To ward off this apocalypse, we must take the following steps in order of priority, viz (1) build up stocks of food reserves quickly and ensure that no one creates an artificial shortage (2) go in for massive public sector construction projects through rehabilitation of roads and bridges, electricity, telecommunications, link canals, water, sewerage etc (3) ensure that smuggling of foodgrains, cement, petroleum, etc to neighbouring countries comes to a dead stop (4) give adequate grants and credits to farmers in kind rather than in cash, directed mainly towards inherewithal to help them produce e.g. seeds, tractors, tube-wells, etc (5) give incentives for production targets in order to force-multiply the supply of cash crops, and last but not the least (6) ensure that the human vultures stay away from the flood-affected during this process.
The WAPDA reply to the charges regarding Mangla Dam can be labelled as a typical bureaucratic exercise in evasion. While the WAPDA Chairman may not have a direct hand in the tragedy caused along the Jhelum River because of the delayed opening of the Dam spillways, particularly as he is a non-technical political appointee, he is directly responsible for the official WAPDA reply to the contentious “issues” raised by the media. WAPDA bosses seem to ignore the sad fact that many lives were lost because of gross criminal negligence, and many of which could have been saved by a more judicious and timely release of water. On the contrary Mr Mumtaz Hameed takes it upon himself to become an inexplicable part of what is essentially a cover-up. While his loyalty to the organisation may be praiseworthy, his judgement in trying to protect a callous bunch of technocrats is open to question.
We must have a permanent, well-organised Disaster Relief Organisation (DRO) with a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that should have some sort of an Early Warning System to cope with both natural and artificial disasters. This should have a well-located warehouse complex having pre-positioned medicines, food, tents, potable water, generators, blankets etc. Helicopters from the Army Aviation as well as light fixed wing spotter planes must be pre-allotted. It must have a high-tech Control Room next to a runway and road/rail link upto international specifications so that relief goods arriving by air, road or rail can be sorted out, re-packed and distributed from the warehouse.
It must have a permanent nucleus staff with the most advanced communications. Staff at various levels of emergencies (levels to be broadcast) must be pre-designated to join the HQ or at other locations for which they are earmarked without waiting for official notification. The DRO complex can be located somewhere in the middle of the country in an area not usually prone to natural disasters (or the weather) so that continuous operations is possible all the year round. By a continuous turnover of stocks, these can be kept in reasonable shape, at the same time those should be immediate replacement of depleted stocks.
The Government of Pakistan (GoP) has done a reasonable job in coping with the flood situation inspite of the top-level command failure in WAPDA as well as apathy of the District Administration in taking timely initiatives. There have been failures and the principle of accountability makes it mandatory that some bureaucrat/technocrat heads must roll, influence must not spare those politicians who would not let some embankments be breached so that their lands would be saved in callous disregard of human life. In this respect a comprehensive report can be asked from the Army, after all who else would be a better judge to the performance of the civil administration as regards flood protection, flood relief and post-flood operations? At this time, a national effort must be made to ameliorate the deteriorating state of the economy, it is also time to work out a bipartisan approach by the main political parties to cope with national disasters, rather than add to the misery and privation by going at each other’s throats in a free-style exhibition of politics sans principles.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment