Jacobabad sounds alarm on need for drainage system.
ISLAMABAD -- The administration of Sindh's Jacobabad district has written to the irrigation department to initiate a storm water drainage scheme under the climate change mitigation and adaptation plan.
Months after the floods, the district is still facing permanent water logging, which is damaging cultivable lands.
The district administration has said a further delay on part of the irrigation department may lead to food insecurity and poverty in Jacobabad.
The district was one of the worst-hit areas during the last year's floods. According to the post-flood damage assessment, as many as 115,000 houses, 200,000 agriculture acres, 83,000 livestock, 162 major and minor farms to market roads, 37 health facilities and 392 schools have been washed away.
This destruction would have been seventy per cent less had there been an integrated storm water drainage system in the Jacobabad district, the official communication noted.
Administration writes to irrigation dept as water logging affects cultivable land; UN report says 1.8m people still living near stagnant ponds
The letter, a copy of which is available with Dawn, emphasised that the central challenge for Jacobabad was the unavailability of a storm water drainage system.
The district administration, in the letter, claimed that permanent water logging has directly damaged around 70,000 acres of cultivable land and could affect over 100,000 acres of fertile land.
The irrigation department was informed that last year's floods damaged settlements and infrastructures on natural water. This will be repeated in coming seasons as frequent and intense downpour, triggered by climate change, could permanently destroy the oldest settlements in the district if no flood water drainage system is laid.
The displaced population couldn't be rehabilitated and agriculture couldn't be revived as some pockets are still inundated even seven months after the floods, the letter stated.
Many districts in Sindh are facing water logging months after the floods. PDMA Sindh has declared an urgent need for dewatering activities in the districts of Nausharo Feroze, Khairpur, Sukkur, Jhatta, and Ghotki. To achieve this, five excavators, dewatering pumps, and fuel are required to complete the dewatering process and provide people with appropriate livelihood standards.
Deplorable situation
According to the latest situation report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of...
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