- Malik says distrust continues among provinces of dams and channels.
- The minister says consensus on water infrastructure had been lacking.
- Telemetry only to end a lack of confidence between provinces: Malik
As land rolls under heavy floods and the resulting destruction, the federal minister of climate change Musadik Malik has said that Pakistan suffers from an anchored elite culture, where Riverside properties belong only to the powerful rather than the poor.
“There is no poor man’s hotel on the river bank – only resorts of the powerful,” he said while talking about Pakinomist News The “Pakinomist Pakistan” program.
Mistust persists among provinces of dams and channels where each suspects the other of the detention of water, he added.
“Balochistan believes it is deprived and that Sindh is getting water but not passing on it,” he noted, adding that consensus on water infrastructure had been missing.
The minister described telemetry as the solution to end a lack of confidence between the provinces. Working on the project, he said, had already begun and was expected to be completed within a year or so.
Malik emphasized that people have grown their crops inside the river bed that has worsened the flood situation further.
He warned that Sargodha had begun to feel the effect of flooding and expected that when rivers first converged at Panjnad, the stream of water could rise to a million Cusives.
He noted that evacuations were performed on warnings where both humans and livestock moved to safety. In one case, 30 inhabitants initially refused to leave their village, but were persuaded to evacuate; Floodwaters have since reached the area, he added.
The Minister emphasized that the country without water reservoirs at Tehsil and District Level remains vulnerable. He called for the creation of natural water reserves over Pakistan to deal with future crises.
Pakistan is fighting stormy monsoon rain that has released flash flows, swollen rivers and stuffed dams, with more than 800 deaths reported since the end of June. In the middle of the heavy rain, India released excess water this week from its dams, raising the river river downstream in Punjab.
NDMA said Pakistan evacuated more than 210,000 villagers near the rivers Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab flowing from India.
Pakistani officials on Thursday said India went ahead with its third flood warning since Sunday, this time for Sutlej, while the two previous ones related to waters entering Pakistan at Ravi.
