Officers and staff remain in field to avoid losses: Qaisar Zulfiqar Khan

Lahore: Provincial Minister for Irrigation Qaisar Zulfiqar Khan has directed officers and staff of Irrigation Department to spend maximum time in field so that canals and protective spurs could be looked after properly and losses due to likely flood be avoided.

He issued this directive while presiding over a meeting with regard to making preparations in connection with expected flood in the office of Irrigation Department. Secretary Irrigation Punjab Capt. (Retd.) Zahid Saeed, Additional Secretary (Technical) Muhammad Khalid Qureshi, Additional Secretary (Operation) Malik Muhammad Saleem, Chief Engineer (Development) Muhammad Jamil Bhatti, Chief Engineer (Lahore Zone) Muhammad Nazir Anjum, Chief Engineer Drainage & Floods Ch. Bashir Ahmed Zahid, as well as concerned officers attended the meeting.

During the briefing, Provincial Minister was told that Irrigation Department has evolved a flood plan for meeting the threats of likely flood during current year’s monsoon. According to the plan, all Zonal Chief Engineers have been directed to complete the survey of all canals and protective spurs and wherever necessary, ensure the repair work at the earliest. Provincial Minister was informed that survey of flood hit areas of South Punjab has been completed and the work has been started for evolving a strategy to save the local population from the destruction of flood water of hill torrents.

Qaisar Zulfiqar Khan while expressing his satisfaction over the steps taken by the Irrigation Department for coping with the threats of likely flood directed that the repair work of protective spurs and embankments should be accelerated and a coordinated strategy should be evolved for protecting South Punjab from flood destructions. He also directed to evolve a coordinated plan for checking the erosion of river Sindh in district DG Khan. Provincial Minister was told that a flood warning centre is being established on Jail Road for providing timely information about the threats of flood which will start functioning from June 15 and continue to work round the clock till the end of flood season.

Irrigation Minister directed the officers present in the meeting to pay special attention to the repair of embankments and protective spurs. He said that in case of shortage of funds for the completion of development work, a summary should be submitted within two days so that after getting approval from the Chief Minister Punjab, work should be completed on these projects before start of flood season.