Khawaja Zaheer Ahmed - PDMA

and appreciate the NDMA assistance, in the recent
past.
49. Leaving aside the substance of the outcomes or individual perceptions of
the lead managers of principal stakeholders of that conference were expected to
team up for flood fighting, it took NDMA some three weeks for issuing the
Minutes of the proceedings, on 19 th July, 2010. By that time, weather forecasts
had taken a new turn, necessitating fresh warnings/advisories, repeated with
intervals on 20 th , 26 th , 27 th and 29 th July besides the two SOSs sent to the Chief
Secretary, Sindh demi-officially, on 2 nd August 2010 on the heels of PMD’s
warning of 1 st August and promptly acknowledged by the PDMA. As it happened,
by then, the 28 th June PMD forecast had been overtaken by nature, justifying
intensified alerts about the impending disaster and triggering counter- measures
to prevent or minimise the damage. While material has been placed on record in
handling an extraordinary volume of work and commendable efforts mobilized
after unfolding of the disaster, for 52 months after its establishment, the NDMA
had not done its homework for pre-disaster phase, nor pursued the PDMAs and
DDMAs to do theirs, either, or report its inability to do so to the National
Commission or the Parliament: Annual reports submitted to the two Houses of
the Parliament, as contemplated in extraordinary legislative initiative of
surrendering provincial autonomy on this subject, required a more significant
interest from that august body. The adhoc approach manifested absence of
clearer contours of a National Strategic Plan that had to lay foundations for the
Provincial level plans; that was not conducive for the size or type of the tragedy
that unfolded untold miseries for 12 % of national population to erode its 5.8 % of
the GDP in one big sweep. An institutional approach was not pursued; it was a
pre-requisite for an orderly implementation of article 144 legal framework
contemplated by the Federating units in 2006. The fact that the largest Province
did not depute its representative to attend consultative session spoke volumes
about the NDMA’s clout, in normal times, at least. That need had become more
pronounced as Sindh, the second largest province was also not on board initially,
though coalition partners in 2002 and 2010 at provincial and federal levels
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