- Malik says that mistrust persists among the provinces on dams and canals.
- The minister says that the consensus on water infrastructure had failed.
- Telemetry solution only to end the lack of confidence between the provinces: Malik
While the countries rolled up under strong floods and a substantial devastation, the federal minister of climate change, the Senator Musadik Malik, said that Pakistan suffered from an rooted elite culture, where the properties of riverside belong only to powerful rather than the poor.
“There is no poor man’s hotel on the shore-only the powerful seaside resorts,” he said, speaking on PK Press Club News “PK Press Club Pakistan” program.
Mistrust persists among the provinces on dams and canals, each suspecting the other of the reservoir, he added.
“Balutchistan believes that it is private and that the Sindh gets water but does not transmit it,” he said, adding that the consensus on water infrastructure was missing.
The Minister described telemetry as the solution to end the lack of confidence between the provinces. The work on the project, he said, had already started and had to be completed in about a year.
Malik stressed that people cultivated their harvests inside the rivers beds, which has further aggravated the situation of the floods.
He warned that Sargodha had started to feel the impact of the floods and planned that once the rivers converge in Panjnad, the water flow could reach a million cuse.
He noted that evacuations have been carried out in advanced warnings, people and livestock have moved safely. In one case, 30 residents initially refused to leave their village but were convinced to evacuate; Crue waters have since reached the area, he added.
The Minister stressed that without the water tanks at the level of the Tehsil and the District, the country will remain vulnerable. He called for the creation of natural water reserves across Pakistan to deal with future crises.
Pakistan is fighting the torrential monsoon rains that have sparked sudden floods, swollen rivers and filled with dams, with more than 800 deaths reported since the end of June. In the middle of the heavy rains, India released excess water this week from its dams, the flows downstream downstream in Punjab.
The NDMA said that Pakistan has evacuated more than 210,000 villagers near the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab rivers flowing from India.
Pakistani officials said Thursday that India had adopted its third flood warning since Sunday, this time for Sutlej, while the previous two concerned the concerned waters in Pakistan on the Ravi.
