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Pakistan’s latest floods highlight urgency of Water governance

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KARACHI: Until a couple of decades ago, monsoon was feted with dance and songs in rural Pakistan. It was enshrined in poetry, and attributed to romantic fantasies.

But, the otherwise romantic monsoon in recent years has become the second name of destruction and fatalities with its increasing ferocity, frequency, and unpredictability. It has regularly been bringing devastation and diseases with short intervals to this part of the world, especially over the past two decades.

This year has been turned out to be the worst so far. The drenching monsoon followed by super floods caused lakes and rivers to overflow, flattened hundreds of thousands of houses, washing away uncountable cattle, and damaging huge amounts of ready -to-reap crops.

The raging deluges brought a third of the country under water, aside from killing over 1,700 people, and inflicting a staggering loss of 30 billion dollars to an already sputtering economy so far since mid-June.

A recent visit to several flood-battered districts of Sindh and Balochistan suggested that things are fast  moving from bad to worse as the secondary diasters are plauging the poor victims who have been living in squalor and diseases.

Large swathes of croplands are still under 3-6 feet water, with no hopes for immediate clearance. It means, tens of thousands of farmers won’t be able to grow wheat- a key source of their income – for next year.

It is ironic that the country is “full of water” at present but after a few months, it is likely to face a drought-like situation, causing further damage to the crops and putting an extra pressure on the country’s already depleting water resources.

Despite having one of the world’s largest irrigation systems, Pakistan is an importer of wheat, lintels, and other staples as its agricultural lands shrink due to a string of factors ranging from massive floods to drought. This lethal combination has also triggered widespread migration within Pakistan in the past decade.

More than two million people were displaced by floods that inundated one-fifth of the country in 2010, triggering mass migration to cities from rural Pakistan.

Of that figure, almost 70% did not go back to their hometowns and permanently settled in big cities to make a living because of the destruction to their homes and farmlands, according to the Ministry of Climate Change.

How long will it continue?  The answer is very simple .i.e until the country has a modern water governance system.

There could be different voices over ways of handling the floods and rainwaters, nonetheless the water experts are of a unanimous view that a proper water management system is the only way to mitigate the devastating impacts and aftermaths of rains and floods, which are likely to continue to strike Pakistan in years to come with short gaps.

Already melting glaciers are the primary target of climate change, mainly the rising temperatures, which will lead to acute water shortages and subsequently, hit agriculture and biodiversity in the region.

Pakistan is among the top ten countries vulnerable to the challenges relating to climate change and global warming, although its share in release of fossil fuels is less than 1 per cent. The country is annually losing more than $4 billion due to climate change disasters.

Islamabad takes credit for its much-publicized battle against the simmering climate change challenges, including ex-premier Imran Khan’s ambitious “10 Billion Tree Tsunami” project, which aims to restore the country’s fast-depleting forest cover.

For many environmentalists, nevertheless, it would not change much in terms of global warming as the Countries like Pakistan, which have a very minor share in the destruction of the environment.

Countries like Pakistan cannot do much to minimize the impact of climate change and global warming. What they can do is to adopt the modern ways of water governance to not only minimize the devastations caused by regular floods and droughts in terms of human lives, infrastructure and food security.

Certainly, the country, as a whole, lacks an orchestrated water management system, there, nevertheless, are some small but valuable efforts aimed at countering the urban flooding and drought through recharging the groundwater.

The key feature of these efforts is a groundwater recharge wells technology, which experts reckon, should be adopted as a national policy to counter urban flooding and ensuing drought due to climate change.

The groundwater recharge well is a cost-effective nature-based solution to revive aquifers and mitigate the risk of urban flooding through the most modern indigenous technology available.

There are several methods used to artificially recharge groundwater aquifers, including redirecting water across a land surface through streams, infiltration ponds, or simply injecting water directly into the ground through injection wells.

The Institute of Urbanism, International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Pakistan Council for Research on Water Resources (PCRWR) and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (HBS) have joined hands to push the idea of groundwater recharge that, experts agree, is need of the hour.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) is establishing 100 recharge wells, of which 50 have been already operating, in Islamabad to conserve rainwaters and reduce the frequency of urban flooding.

These 50 recharge wells, according to PCRWR , have conserved 10 million gallons water, resulting in not only replenishing the groundwater but also reducing flooding in Rawalpindi’s Nullah Lai, which has long been the focal point of a flamboyant Shaikh Rashid Ahmed.

If this 10 million gallons of water was dumped into Nullah Lai then it would have resulted in urban flooding and inundation of roads and streets to an alarming level.

The PCRWR reports that if only 50% of the runoff from the urban area (220 km2) could be effectively harvested, groundwater recharge equal to the present shortfall of about 200 MGD could be achieved

The council has also established a network of rainwater harvesting system in the Cholistan desert where 110 rainwater harvesting reservoirs have been established each with a capacity of four million gallons.

According to Dr. Mohsin Hafeez, the IWMI’s Country Director and Regional Representative for Central Asia, his organization is helping CDA in implementing it on 100 sites.”

The water recharge level in the federal capital, he said, was 130-150 millimetres in 1990 which remained the same in 2021 despite a rapid spike in population and urbanization.

Established at the capital ‘s sprawling Kachnar Park, an artificial recharge well – the CDA’s pilot project- has helped improve 4.5 mm water table. From May to September, the capital received 78mm rainfall, and 1.9 million gallons of rainwater was conserved on this site.

Similarly in Lahore, a rainwater harvesting site has been established by WASA at Bagh-e-Jinnah with an underground water storage capacity of 1.4 million gallons. The water is later used for watering greenbelt plantations across the city. 

Construction of another two underground water tanks is underway at Sheranwala Gate and Alhamra Arts Council to store rainwater, causing flooding on the city thoroughfares.

These numbers may sound small but the coalition involved in this campaign is committed to transforming it into a national movement, whereby the groundwater recharge well should be an integral part of building by-laws of public buildings including academic institutions, private housing societies and industries and  green belts.  Thank you IU, IWMI, PCRWR and HBS.

The writer is a senior journalist and works for Turkiye’s Anadolu Agency.

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SBCA working without Director Administration & Director Finance

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KARACHI: The Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA), the only authority to keep vigil on the illegal construction and builder mafia, the authority has been working without full-fledged director administration and director finance for the past couple of weeks, it is learnt.

According to sources, the most competent and honest officer of the authority namely M Mushtaq Ibrahim Soomro was performing as Director Administration and Director Finance with utmost honesty however the powerful mafia within the authority used their influence and got him transferred from the authority’s headquarters.

SBCA Director General/Chief Executive Abdul Rasheed Solangi issued an order on August 7, 2024 transferring the most competent officer from the post.

“Mushtaq Ibrahim Soomro, Director (BS-19) Administration and Finance (SBCA) Headquarter is hereby transferred and posted as Regional Director (BS-19) Hyderabad Region (SBCA) vice Engr Syed Ali Mehdi Kazmi, Regional Director (BS-19) Hyderabad Region (SBCA), who has already been allowed to work as Additional Director General-BS-20 (SBCA) on his own pay & scale”, according to notification.

“M Mushtaq Ibrahim Soomro, Regional Director (BS-19) Hyderabad Region (SBCA) is also allowed to look after the charge of Regional Director (BS-19) Mirpurkhas Region (SBCA) in addition to his own duties, until further orders”, the notification adds.

Soon after the transfer of Mr Soomro, the posts of Director Administration and Director Finance remained vacant as no officers were posted on the vacant posts since August 7, 2024. “Now the deputy director is forwarding most important files directly to the Director General, sources disclosed.

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Bajari Mafia – Karachi’s Safoora Town under clutches of Mallah brothers

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KARACHI: It seems that every person in the Sindh’s Local Government Department has become powerful mafia as there is no proper check and balance on appointment, transfer and posting of employees in the most important department and the “Might is Right’ rule prevails there.

The same is the case with Town Municipal Corporation, Safoora, District East, where Mallah brothers have become mafia with the alleged political backing from the Chief Minister’s House.

According to insiders, Munawar Hussain Mallah, Town Municipal Commissioner, TMC Safoora, District East has badly hit the performance of the town administration led by the elected town chairman adding miseries to the lives of citizens.

Interestingly, Munawar Hussain Mallah, an officer of BPS-17/SCUG Service (Admin Branch), carries two fake service profiles that included his appointment on December 22, 1995. Later, he was promoted to BS-16 on October 27, 2011. He got another promotion to BS-17 in 2019.

Insiders disclosed that Munawar Mallah was initially appointed as UC Secretary in Karachi’s Quaidabad area and drew salaries as secretary union council for couple of years.

The seniority list, issued by the Local Government Department, Government of Sindh, in year 2010 did not include his name anywhere in the list. How come is it possible that Mr Mallah got promotion from BS-16 to BS-17 in 2016?

It is mentioned here that Munawar Mallah is brother of most corrupt official namely Maqsood Mallah who recently blackmailed his bosses as he was under severe disciplinary action for his massive financial corruption. He also put a major dent on the performance of most competent and honest Secretary Sindh Local Government Board Piyaar Ali Lakho. Presently, Maqsood Mallah is on stay from the Sindh High Court just to avoid any legal and departmental action from the department.

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System Works – Najmi Alam’s front-man becomes powerful mafia of Sindh’s livestock, fisheries

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KARACHI: In blatant violation, Advisor to Chief Minister on Livestock and Fisheries Department Najmi Alam has appointed his front-man Agha Saeed as focal person of the Livestock and Fisheries Department of the Sindh Government, it is reliably learnt.

The Sindh’s livestock and fisheries department has always been a hot-cake where financial corruption of billions of rupees were corrupted and many investigations underway by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The world famous corruption made by Nisar Morai is still in the minds of the people and yet again the prominent ‘SYSTEM’ finally entered into the department in shape of installation of Najmi Alam as advisor. Under the rules, no outsider or private person can be installed as focal person, sources say.

Now, the project directors of foreign-funded multi-million projects engineers, development experts and all other official dealing with development schemes and budgets would directly report to Agha Saeed, the front-man of Najmi Alam.

Agha Saeed is a low-grade employee of the Sindh Local Government Department, who has brought into the Livestock and Fisheries Department by Najmi Alam. His appointment has shocked almost every officer of the department and a wave of unrest prevail among their ranks, sources added.

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