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Terror-hit Peshawar lacks proper rescue, relief facilities

By Manzoor Ali Shah

PESHAWAR: With more than 2.5 million population, Peshawar lacks proper rescue, relief, and disaster management facilities, while negligence on the part of the government to equip and make functional the organisations created for the purpose is making the situation worse, officials and sources told Daily Times on Saturday.

Many of the concerned officials said that the government was engaged in creating new bodies to deal with the matters for which full-fledged departments were already in place, resulting into toothless old and paper-tiger new organisations.

An obvious example is a tug of war between the city district government and health department for Rescue 1122 phone number to launch emergency service in the city. A rescue organisation on the pattern of 1122 of Lahore was the brainchild of former city nazim Ghulam Ali and a PC-II of Rs 280 million was presented in August 2008.

However, the PC-II was rejected by the provincial government. It envisaged six fully equipped crisis management centres in city parts; however, after its revival, the plan has become controversial as the city district government says that the proposed institution should be integrated with fire brigade so that they could react to emergencies swiftly. However, the health department jumped into the fray saying as they were responsible for hospitalisation of patients, the number should be allotted to them.

So far, both the departments have failed to resolve their differences. Health department project in-charge Dr Shamsul Haq, when contacted, said that the minister for local government and chief secretary were trying to resolve the issue. However, he said that construction work on five centres on GT Road, Charsadda Road, Warsak Road, Kohat Road and Khyber Road was continuing, while the department was also purchasing 10 fully equipped ambulances costing Rs 700,000 each.

He said that the department had also approached Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) while interviews for appointment of the staff would also start soon and they would be sent for training from January to March 2010 and the service would be launched by the end of March.

Regarding the tug of war, he said that they were not doing it for themselves, rather it was for the public and all the stakeholders could participate in a coordinated effort.

However, according to sources, district government was not happy with the health department on the grounds that the new service could have been integrated with the city fire brigade and could prove more effective in this manner.

“It is not the mandate of the health department to run rescue service while they do not have the required experience or staff,” a senior official told Daily Times. He was of the view that the rescue service should be run by technocrats who knew their business well.

Apart from this, the existing institutions are also not in a good condition and a glaring example of the government’s negligence towards these institutions was evident after Meena Bazaar blast. According to sources in the provincial directorate of civil defence, the department had no funds to refill fuel tanks of an ambulance and a fire engine. The issue was brought into the notice of commissioner Peshawar and he wrote to the provincial home secretary to take stock of the situation, the sources added.

Director Civil Defence Noor Ali Khan told Daily Times that the department needed funds to give honouraria to its volunteers and meet other expenses. He said that they had a huge pool of 10,000 trained volunteers. He said that the department was lacking funding; however, they were doing their best to face any eventuality.

The situation of city fire brigade is also not good, as it is trying to meet the emergency needs of the city with seven firemen and nine old fire engines.

Fire brigade head Rashid Ali told Daily Times that the latest models with the department dated back to 2004, while the rest of the engines were not being used anywhere else, but they were managing those old Bradford model engines with great difficulty. City district government transport budget was Rs 3 million and fire brigade was also paid for its expenditures from this pool.

City district government Chief Rescue Officer Roshan Khan said that they were badly in need of excavators, snorkel, heavy duty cranes, heavy chipping machinery, dumpers and safety kits for the rescue staff.

The sources in the city government told Daily Times that the rescue staff even did not have proper uniforms and most of the staff were using uniforms given to them by Rescue 1122 Academy Lahore during training earlier this year.

However, Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) stood alone in all this. It has necessary heavy machinery including hose which could reach up to 60 feet.

We have recently bought body detector to locate trapped people beneath the collapsed structures at the expense of Rs 2.5 million, PDA Director Mechanical Siraj Anwar told Daily Times.

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