Editorial
Flood challenge too serious for recrimination
Total national effort needed to tackle it
It is disquieting to note that some government functionaries and politicians are blaming each other for lack of cooperation in addressing the flood-relief related tasks. At a time of national calamity when 47 districts out of 64 are facing varying degrees of inundation endangering life and property of at least ten million, this trading of blame is both distracting and obstructive to the tasks at hand. There is crying need for shelter, food, potable water and medical help including IV saline. Every hour 19 diarrhoea patients are crowding into Dhaka hospitals, let alone those in the outlying areas. Five hundred schools and colleges have gone under water implying they could no longer serve as shelter centres in addition to education coming to a grinding halt. Seventy-five percent embankments have been severely damaged. Receding waters will breed their own problems: damaged infrastructure, quantifiable magnitude of crop losses, high incidence of water borne diseases, all becoming pressing issues of post-flood rehabilitation. We need hardly labour the point that government alone cannot handle such a massive task. All the actors like political parties, NGOs, voluntary and philanthropic organisations, community leaders and student groups must come forward in aid of the flood victims -- not only out of their own sense of social responsibility but also be welcomed by the government to do so. The government should give a robust signal -- we note that the chief adviser has already put across one -- to the private sector and all other potential players who could work shoulder to shoulder with the district administrations to help mitigate the sufferings of flood victims. Let's face it that they have been somewhat hesitant in coming forward in an emergency after their Chittagong experience in which their attempt to lend a hand was somewhat frustrated. Now, that the government at the top level says that emergency is no bar to participation in relief operations, this should clear the air. Much shouldn't be made about political parties giving relief with their identification in some form or the other. Political parties have networks up to the grassroots. The NGOs have a strong database and links to local communities. They not only have the right to stand by the flood victims in their hour of need but also a competence to do so. Add to this, the pressing into service of the government's disaster preparedness and mitigation frameworks, we have a complete flood alleviation strategy in hand to be harnessed for the good of the people. At this hour of need people crave for full scale national endeavour, not piecemeal and fragmentary efforts, for tiding over the crisis they face today.
|
|
