HRCP

Civil Society

HRCP’s tours of drought-hit areas

Some salient findings

HRCP organised special teams to visit the drought-afflicted areas of Balochistan and Sindh mostly in the second and third weeks of May.

The teams that toured Khuzdar, Chagai and Pishin districts included HRCP chairperson Mr. Afrasiab Khattak, Vice Chairperson Dr. Amiruddin, Mr. Husain Naqi and Mrs Amiruddin. Those who traveled through Tharparkar district were led by Vice Chairperson Mr. Ali Hassan.

In addition to what they saw themselves, the team members were able to talk with a large number of affected and displaced people, local leaders, officials and members of non-government relief teams.

Overall situation

The impact of the drought was visible everywhere, but the scale of it was hard to estimate in specific terms. No official survey had been done in any of the stricken areas either.

The other visible feature was that the relief effort was both highly inadequate and unorganized. Even available supplies were not reaching their destinations promptly enough, and those that reached were not being properly distributed.

Thirdly, it was clear that lack of rains was only a partial explanation of the calamity. Man-made factors had multiplied it manifold. For instance, in Balochistan, there had been total depletion of underground water because of digging of hundreds of tube wells without any new dams to replenish the resource. The flow of money from cross-border trade and remittances in the 80s and 90s had seen unplanned investments in agriculture. In some areas the water table had fallen to 500 ft. The HRCP team saw one zamindar in Pishin digging his seventh well. In Tharparkar similarly the sitting of the barrages and the dropping of the water table up to 1000 ft below the ground compounded the people's misery.

Human suffering

The number of people who had died from mysterious afflictions but basically from lack of nutrition in Thar district alone was put in excess of five hundred by the local citizens. This was when the government was still claiming the toll to be in the region of 127. The district health officials in Thar claimed to have visited 300 villages. Even that was a fraction of the 2,350 villages in the district.

In Balochistan, in the displaced persons' camp in Dak near Nushki, in Chagai, just two doctors were attending to 300-400 patients each everyday.

Movement of population had occurred on a large scale. Several of the Balochistan villages right close up to the Afghan border in Nushki and Chagai were either totally empty or had only a few people left. Many of the people were in fact there only because they had been sent back from the camps on the promise that relief supplies would be brought to their homes. None was brought in the event. They were sent home by officials only so that overcrowded camps did not bring a bad name to the government.

Movement of population in Tharparkar had been on a massive scale - up to 30% from Mithi and Diplo tehsils, 80% from Nagarparkar tehsil and 50% from Chachro tehsil.

The displaced persons were in many cases living in sub-human conditions. The 600 families in Dak, in Nushki, had no tents. They used pieces of cloth to cover their heads and their cattle against searing heat.

Cattle and agriculture

The cattle in almost all the affected parts perished on a mass scale for lack of vegetation and fodder. The teams saw carcasses of goats and sheep dotting the rural landscape.

Damage to agriculture was widespread. The Khushdil Khan Dam which, normally irrigated 40,000 acres of the mainly agricultural district of Pishin, now had no water because of the accumulated silt. The wheat crop had badly suffered and the apple and apricot orchards stood in withered desolation. HRCP team noticed that several karezes had either completely dried up or had greatly shrunk.

The Loralai district, which HRCP could not visit, was reported to be in an even worse shape than Pishin.

Government action

Government had moved into action at the time of HRCP's visits. But its exertions were severely flawed on at least two counts. They were belated and they were inadequate and ill organized.

The calamity had crept in over a long period. Acute shortage of water in Thar, for instance, had begun five years ago. By August last year, the gravity of the situation had already reached serious proportions. It was not until November that the government took notice.

Even then, all it offered was 20 kilos of wheat per family (regardless of the size of the family) at the subsidised rate of Rs. 5 per kilo instead of Rs. 7. The starving families were expected to travel from their villages to distant cities where the flourmills were located. A large quantity of wheat was also damaged in the government's unfumigated godowns.

Distribution of cash among the worst-affected at the rate of Rs. 1,000 per family was started early in May. But the process was so slow in Sindh that in the first nine days only 432 families had, been given any money.

In Balochistan, there were remoter, areas where the officials had not even reached until I HRCP's visit.

There were serious problems of transportation of relief goods. The goods meant for Aranji and nearby areas were, for instance, seen piled up in Khuzdar. There were also reports of wrongful distribution.

Private effort

NGOs and philanthropic individuals had joined the relief effort in some numbers. Some of their effort was defeated where they had to depend on the official agencies for transportation and distribution of goods. Goods sent out from the other provinces, thus, were delayed by official inefficiency or redtapism. Or even lack of resources. Officials in Tharparkar, for instance, complained of paucity of funds to pay for transportation of the edible items piled up in Mithi. Absence of metalled roads was also claimed to be a hurdle.

Political parties were conspicuous by their absence. This could only partly be due to any official interference in their effort. Even local PPP and PML organisations and members did not appear active. Jamaat-i-Islami members were relatively more involved - or were assumed to be in public perceptions.

Recommendations

Both immediate and longer-term measures are needed to make the present show of concern rise to the level indicated by the emergency. Some of these can be listed as follows:

Immediate measures

I. Speed up distribution of cash assistance, and enhance the amount to twice its present level. Give special assistance to losers of cattle.

2. Arrange for immediate transportation of relief assistance accumulating at the district headquarters.

Assign as many helicopters to the task as possible. They are particularly needed for places in Khuzdar, Kharan, Panjgoor and Tharparkar.

3. Identify areas of desperate and priority needs. Make the necessary provisions to rush them where most needed. The emergency requirements include: basic edibles, flour and powdered milk, basic medical needs, such as vitamins and life-saving drugs, and for the cattle, green and fresh fodder (not ‘concentrated’ feed, which do not suit cattle of water-scarce areas) and preventive medicine.

4. Shift people and cattle from areas where water is not available.

5. Identify sections of population needing prior attention. Nomadic people, and people who have no means to have their own tubewells or storage facility, come in that category.

6. Rush water supplies for orchards of Loralai, Qila Saifullah, Muslim Bagh, Chagai and Pishin.

7. Raise the level of relief operation in the declared calamity areas. Notify the identity of those entrusted with coordination of the-relief effort.

8. Minorities face a particular problem where they are not allowed to use the `Muslim' wells. This situation needs early remedy.

Longer-term

1. Planning for suitable dams and rainwater storage in Balochistan needs to be started immediately.

2. Steps have to be initiated for the management of water, which is still available on the surface or underground in Balochistan.

3. Digging and operation of tube wells in Balochsitan need to be suitably regulated.

4. Serious attention has to be given to the use of solar energy for desalination and lifting of underground water both in coastal areas and where saline underground water is available.

5. Tharparkar has both the dire need and abundant capacity for longer-term development. Schemes to build a canal to Indus and create lances for water storage and the development of its vast mining potential need to be taken up in earnest. It has a population of a million, about 80% of them living below the poverty line.

6. Care has to be taken not to create people's dependency on handouts. Apart from immediate relief to people in genuine hardship, attention should be diverted to creating sustainable solutions to public concerns on a fasting basis.