Five Sindh districts badly affected by drought
The Dawn, 11/15/2002

KARACHI, Nov 14: A field drought assessment mission of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UNDP called on Sindh Additional Chief Secretary (Development), Shahzado Shaikh, here on Thursday and discussed matters pertaining to the assessment of the drought-hit areas, the affected people of Thar and Arid Zone of the province, according to a statement on Thursday.

The secretary told the mission that five districts in Sindh and 3000 human settlements were badly affected by prolonged drought conditions.

He added that 194,798 families of the districts of Thar, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Dadu and Thatta, with 1.38 million population and 5.60 million livestock, had been affected and more than one million people had moved from the drought-hit area of Thar to the irrigated areas of the province.

The secretary also briefed the mission on the relief and emergency action plan which includes declaration of calamity-affected area covering the Thar Kohistan and Kacha region of Sindh, remission of land revenue, postponement of recovery of past years' dues, medical aid, free distribution of wheat at 100 KGs per family for two months and current provision of about 25,000 metric tons of wheat at the cost of Rs250.00 million.

He suggested that windmills should be established in the desert areas so as to overcome the crises of water, power and gas.

The mission will assess the impact of drought on crops, food supply, households and communities. It will also identify the area severely affected by drought in Sindh.-APP

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