PITB reinforces flood relief activities across the Punjab: Dr. Umar Saif

Lahore: The Punjab IT Board (PITB) has launched a comprehensive Flood Monitoring System (FMS) in collaboration with the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Punjab that is providing proactive flood relief and rehabilitation services, timely SMS alerts, reform deployment forms and a toll free helpline to flood affected people.

It was stated by the Chairman PITB Dr. Umar Saif while addressing a meeting held in his office last day. He said “the Helpline of PDMA 1129 is working round the clock whereon any flood affected person or his relative may make a call and seek help from the government agencies.

Moreover citizens can call on the helpline in the event of a disaster and file their complaint. Their complaint is registered and a confirmation message is sent to them via SMS. This complaint is then assigned to the relevant officer and from that moment will be accessible via the web application.

The complainant will also receive a follow up call to verify that the complaint had been redressed. In any case the report will be dispatched to the respective department which shall take immediate action if the problem has not been addressed as yet.

It provides district wise real time data related to the assessment of life, land, houses and cattle damage and relief activities taken by the Punjab Government. For instance on timely coordination among the government functionaries and flood affected persons through helpline, a total number of 158,135 persons had been rescued from inundated area and shifted to safer places or relief camps while 136,018 patients had been treated in Flood Medical Camps in 27 affected districts of Punjab. Almost 134,000 calls have been registered by the system so far.”

Dr. Saif told that the FMS had reinforced a number of relief activities such as 130,750 food hampers, 32800 tents, 82,000 mineral water bottles, 22,550 Mosquito nets and 256,955 meals had been distributed among the bereaved families. He said that the PDMA’s dashboard is another useful forum from where the stakeholders including journalists, researchers and policy makers can find all kind of data and information.

Dr. Saif said “The Dashboard developed by PITB is a state of the art disaster management tool to aid the ongoing efforts for immediate relief and rehabilitation of flood victims and mitigation of the extent of damage. He told that the system also plays very effective role in assessment of damages and payment of compensation to the deserving families comparatively in the shortest span of time.”