The simultaneous price rise for the utility services, already on the cards, hangs like Damocles' Sword over our necks. The advent of Ramadan, usually accompanied by a fresh spate of price rise, is only weeks away: The gathering gloom has been thickened by devastating flood, taking its tolls in terms of human miseries as well as death and destruction of lives and properties.

It has already obliterated, in its cruel sweep, numerous hamlets and homesteads and levelled the standing crops with muddy sheets of water. The post-flood prognoses by the experts and economists are equally depressing.

The ruling dispensation of the country is genuinely concerned, although it is not designed to take on a disaster of this magnitude. Neither does it fall in the self-prescribed agenda of the government.

Yet the chief adviser of the interim government as well as several other advisers have separately visited some badly affected areas, distributed some relief goods, and given mealy-mouthed assurances ostensibly to placate the people's panic and anxiety.

Meanwhile, the army is also busy in protecting and repairing flood embankments -- now the shelters for flood victims. The government's sincerity on the count cannot apparently be questioned. So far, so good.

However, the ground realities are far from encouraging. There are miseries galore, in spite of relief distribution, which is little more than scrap. It, in no way, matches the damages caused and the losses incurred to the people. As a result, the relief materials being distributed are just drops in the ocean.

As was experienced in the past, the disaster management of this nature had always been a matter of great mobilisation, with broad-based participation. This time it seems to have been controlled by the establishment alone.

Anything that involves public relations between the ruled and the rulers needs to have some chemistry between the two. Or else it becomes a mechanical exercise tinged with an apathy on the part of all who carry out the exercise willy-nilly. That's the problem with the dispensation and their crisis management or relief operation.

This is not the first or last time that the interim government is stuck with the problem not designed for resolution. It is not for nothing that there is clamour from different quarters, both at home and abroad, to restore political order in the country.

It is only the political patrons of the distressed people in a crisis like the present one who would care to soothe their bruised psyche resulting from the catastrophe. An executive or technocrat government cannot possibly have the wherewithal to address hard issues of the public arising out of a disaster like this. Consequently their efforts are sincere but unsuccessful.

As reported by TV channels, the marooned people only heard about some kind of relief being distributed but they did not receive any.

The need of the hour is to be able to reach out to the people. One of the advisers rightly admitted that the government did not have a network of activists like the political parties. Then why keep them under leash? Even if the present dispensation deserves credit for being the champion of justice and crusader against corruption, there are areas where it keeps stumbling.

By prolonging its writ, the interim government will only complicate problems for the nation and for themselves. After all, a line has to be drawn somewhere. The current situation arising out of natural disaster, wobbly economy, and continuing law and order problem are pointers that the national affairs are best left to the quarter that have traditionally managed them.

In any case, the interim nature of the government has since been recognised by the mandate given to it. It did go the extra mile to cleanse the debris of the past -- something it has been properly admired for. It is in its interest as well as for the nation's long-term benefit that it comes under scrutiny for any of its failures. Now is this time to be able to fix a cut-off time -- presumably by holding a general election.

Without a proper political government in place, the problems are piling up and reaching a point where any future government will find them insoluble. It would be a disservice to the nation for any dispensation to bring the nation to such a dire strait.

Apart from problems on many fronts, the investment has been shrinking for years while the public enterprises of great repute are closed down. Where will the vast multitude of people sustained by those enterprises go? Can an interim government think about them? Let the process be hastened for the people who can.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.