IN the aftermath of the recent rains in upper Sindh, poor disaster management has once again indicated that Sindh`s Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) has not gone beyond its formative stage.

It has learnt nothing from the back-to-back disasters of 2010 and 2011, and its responsibilities have been largely restricted to post-disaster provision of tents and ration packets.

When the 2010 floods hit seven districts located on the right bank of the Indus in upper Sindh we were told repeatedly that these were `super floods` and that the PDMA wasn`t prepared for them.

During last year`s monsoon rains in districts located on the left bank of the Indus in lower Sindh, we were told again that the rains were exceptionally heavy and it was beyond the PDMA`s capacity to respond to the situation in their aftermath. This year`s rains again exposed the PDMA.

Before the monsoon season, the National Disaster Management Authority chief Zafar Iqbal and Sindh Minister for Rehabilitation Muzaffar Shujra who is the administrative head of the PDMA in the ministry were talking about a contingency plan for Sindh`s 23 districts.

Meetings were held and directives passed to cope with the monsoon season. But the plan did not work. Only the provision of tents and rations was stressed a post-disaster relief measure and not within the PDMA`s domain.

A separate relief ministry is there to oversee relief operations. Relief provision is the responsibility of the senior member of the Board of Revenue (BoR), who by virtue of his post acts as the reliefcommissioner.

The rains hit the districts of Sukkur, Khairpur, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Kashmore at Kandhkot and Qambar-Shahdadkot badly. Besides inundating swathes of farmland, flooding even in urban areas took a heavy toll on the people.Drainage systems in urban settlements broke down with the PDMA management at a loss to cope with the situation.

No strategy was put in place to ensure the disposal of accumulated rainwater even though there were predictions of belated monsoon rains.

Sindh, being the tail-end province of the Indus river system, off and on finds itself facing a crisis. Because of climate change, these threats are increasing. It lacks an efficient drainage system though it keeps receiving floodwater or the runoff from the hill torrents of Balochistan.

Rains have caused colossal losses to rice growers, orchards and vegetables in upper Sindh. Initially, farmers were hit by water shortage during the cropping season this summer and then their standing crops were washed away by the rains. Only a proper drainage system can provide some kind of relief to farmers.

Disaster management needs officials specialising in their field and spending a fair amount of time in their posts.

Instead, we have seen four DGs at the PDMA replaced since 2010. Only recently DG Syed Hashim Raza Zaidi was made commissioner Karachi.

Any official heading the PDMA must be given time to properly grasp the disaster management mechanism. Frequent transfers and postings are only putting its perfor-mance under a cloud.

Meanwhile, poor coordination among stakeholders has served only to multiply the people`s miseries.

This fact has been admitted by none other than the adviser to the Sindh chief minister, Haleem Adil Sheikh, who has also pointed out that the provision of ration packets and tents shouldn`t be the PDMA`s job and that there has to be a foolproof disaster-mitigation plan in place.

He has criticised the NDMA in unequivocal terms saying it stresses more on relief provision than disaster management.

The PDMA hasn`t done any disaster profiling of the districts. The fault perhaps lies in the delay in strengthening the DDMA or District Disaster Management Authority which is considered the basic unit of the entire disaster management scheme.

DDMAs were headed by the district coordination officers (DCOs) and now by sitting deputy commissioners (DCs). They are without resources and just figureheads who always look towards the PDMA and NDMA for help.

Funds are not aHocated separately for the job.

The NDMA`s figures involving damage and deaths in this season`s rains countrywide show that 4.4 million people have been affected, compared with 20 million in 2010 and nine million in 2011.

Over 2.88 million people were affected in Sindh alone and as many as 1.7 million acres of land in the province were damaged. There were at least 188 deaths in Sindh out of a total of 370 (Punjab had 60 fatalities and Balochistan 49).

A blame game seems to have started. At a recent meeting of the National Assembly`s Standing Committee on Climate Change, members criticised the NDMA for lack of coordination with the provinces on lessening thedamage caused by rains and floods.

NDMA member Anjum Asad Ameen, who was representing her chairman, blamed the Sindh government for not taking measures like allocating Rs5bn to cope with the situation.

She said that in the light of past experiences, the Sindh government had been asked to prepare for flood damage that would perhaps be more than the combined losses sustained in 2010 and 2011.

Sindh suffered the most because it didn`t take the necessary measures including setting aside an amount of Rs5bn to cope with the worst-case scenario, she said.

It is high time that Sindh invested seriously in disastermitigation measures and allocated sufficient funds for an effective disaster-mitigation plan.

Frequent postings at the PDMA should be avoided and only experts well-versed in disaster management should be posted. A well-equipped disaster response force should be formed. Punjab has one.

Disaster profiling for each district should be made public. Above all, the DDMAs should be strengthened and the response force should work under an independent set-up.• The writer is Dawn`s senior reporter in Hyderabad.