MITHI: Call for plan to avert catastrophe in Tharparkar
The Dawn, By Our Correspondent
1/18/2003

MITHI, Jan 17: The people of Thar on Friday urged the government and the international relief agencies to devise a strategy to combat the worsening situation and avert a catastrophe in the drought-hit Tharparkar district.

The district Nazim, Arbab Attaullah, said that the district government had taken due cognizance of the situation and had sent appeals to government high-ups to declare the district as a calamity-hit area.

He said that the efforts of the district government had prompted massive relief measures to be undertaken by the government. However, he added, there was still a need for formulating a comprehensive policy to combat the worsening drought situation in the region.

The relief efforts, some of the people contacted by this correspondent said, during the past five months had barely gone beyond provision of a single bag of wheat to each of the family in the drought-hit region.

In the absence of a comprehensive drought combating policy, the majority of the calamity-stricken people feel that they had been left in a lurch.

The Nazim said that frequent drought in the region called for devising short and long-term strategies to mitigate the miseries of the Tharis, adding that sustainable planning was needed to minimize the havoc wreaked by the drought.

Commenting on the existing conditions in the region, the executive director of the Tharparkar Rural Development Programme, Dr Sono Khangharani, said that this year's drought surpassed all droughts experienced by the Tharis in their living memory.

He said that the drought had rendered most of the Thari families utterly impoverished, besides debilitating their health and destroying their livestock.

According to him, a considerable number of people and animals would die of hunger and disease if concerted relief efforts were not undertaken on an emergency basis.

Tharparkar district has a population of about one million and it is spread over an area of 20,000 square kilometres.

Dwindling prospects of earning livelihood have forced many a Tharis to employ their under-age children in odd jobs, including the local carpet weaving industry.

These children, who are forced to work under unhygienic conditions affecting their health, earn pathetically low wages.

A large number of people, especially herdsmen, contacted by this correspondent complained that they had lost a large numbers of their animals, including cows, goats, sheep and camels, during the past three months because of unavailability of proper fodder and water.

The people of Man Bai Jo Tar village in Chhachhro tehsil expressed their concern over the non-functioning of a solar plant and a win mill, installed in their village some years ago. The solar plant and windmill were installed to ensure the supply of clean drinking water.

They urged the authorities to redress their grievances on an urgent basis.

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