Though the flood tragedy may crystallize beginning July, it would be highly irresponsible not to devise and implement a comprehensive strategy for confronting this likely tragedy. But levelling charges of corruption on each other doesn't leave our politicians time for fulfilling the obligations that they accept while taking oath as parliamentarians, though they all claim the "supremacy" of the legislature.
One continuing tragedy has been the failure to dredge the dams to increase their depth and thus water storing capacity. Consequently, instead of being stored - critically important for meeting the rising demand for drinking water and increasing the agriculture sector's output - lot of water is released into the rivers (also not dredged to hold higher quantity of water)ends up in the Arabian sea.
The period between now and early May (when water flow into rivers will begin) is the time when rivers and canals must be dredged to increase their water holding capacity, and the silt dug out used to heighten their embankment to minimize chances of water flowing over the embankments and flooding the fields and habitations alongside. Yet no politician or bureaucrat appears bothered about waste of this critical period.
Not surprisingly, neither the Federal Flood Commission nor the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) have thought about implementing pre-emptive measures at the earliest to ensure safe passage of water to counter the possibility that it could destroy villages and nearby farms and render hundreds homeless, given the awful state of embankments of the canals and rivers exposed by each flood tragedy.
This is so because, although each year hundreds of millions are "spent" by provincial Irrigation Departments on river and canal dredging, bulk of this job is "done" only in official records, not in reality - a malpractice that has never been checked though it is exposed by each flood tragedy, which is another example of mis-governance in keeping with the overall character of every regime.
Given this profile of civil administration, it is no wonder that Pakistan has an unending track record of being unprepared for limiting the damage caused by floods although, during these tragedies, human casualties and asset destruction rises by the day because more inundated areas become inaccessible due to ceremonial preparations for confronting the flood tragedies.
To make things worse, state offices under-report the flood-caused losses; reality is exposed only by independent surveyors. After the 2011 floods, UNICEF had estimated that, in Sindh alone over 2.5 million children were affected and loss of property and livestock was widespread. Only then the NDMA confirmed that in Sindh alone 7 million citizens were affected.
In September 2011, the then Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced that the around 2 million houses were damaged wholly or partially, and cattle loss exceeded 64,000. Besides, 80 percent of the standing crops were damaged. He then sought UN assistance in rehabilitating the displaced, and aid from the "Friends of Pakistan" for repair of the damaged infrastructure.
Unprepared district administrations seem helpless in organizing rescue operations because millions of the affected human beings need shifting to dry land in distant locations but since for miles the road network too are flooded, setting up camps in close vicinity becomes impossible. Thus this task defies being undertaken quickly enough to reduce the miseries of the flood-effected people.
This shocking scenario in villages is worsened by the incompetence as well as sheer dishonesty of the district authorities in distributing rescue material to the affected people. Often donated rescue material doesn't reach the flood-hit people though it rots in makeshift storage facilities, or is given only to the favourites, or is whisked away to markets where it is sold.
There have been cases wherein low-ranking NDMA staffers were caught stealing the rescue material. Instances of the flood-affected people storming the venues where rescue material was stored, were witnessed almost daily, but worse still were instances wherein the private guards of "the powerful" killed flood-affected individuals who were demanding the rescue materials.
Due to the fact that the government doesn't realize the importance of watching weather developments, district administrations remain unprepared, emergency transport arrangements aren't ready in time nor is the wherewithal available for building temporary shelters, storing food items and drinking water, and fumigation of areas where the rescued are shifted.
Conditions worsen when the flood-affected can't get even clean drinking water. The bigger failure is not providing medical aid to thousands who have no option but to drink contaminated water and suffer from cholera, diarrhoea, gastric illness, and malaria caused by mosquitoes breeding on the stagnant rain water over hundreds square miles.
After the 2016 flood, in Punjab, the spread of dengue fever exposed another harsh reality; given its huge population, its medical services proved wholly inadequate - they couldn't accommodate even hundreds of patients during that emergency. Surely, this failure could be much worse during the likely floods in 2019 but there is no sign of any preparation for it.
In 2010, Pakistan suffered a flood tragedy that should have taught district administrations crucial lessons. Reportedly, they had prepared rescue plans thereafter for confronting future flood emergencies, but despite all such claims, without exception, district administrations performed poorly, and families recovering from the effects of the 2010 floods were affected yet again in 2011 and 2016.
Calling in the Army for rescue work after every natural disaster reflects poorly on the civil administration - a failure that they never bother about. After the descent of the post-2008 version of democracy, failure of civil administration in this context (besides many others) was ensured by paralyzing the local government system. Three cheers for this version of democracy!
In this setting, that ignores the up-grade of weather forecasting systems and rescue services (example: miserable state of Karachi's fire-fighting department), a repeat of the past flood tragedies is likely. But who is bothered? Foot-dragging on political issues is the politicians' sole expertise, not resolving peoples' misery-escalating problems. But can Pakistan - overburdened by a variety of economic problems - afford another mega tragedy?
It is time action is initiated without any further delay to minimize the likely losses from flood tragedy.