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Lack of coordination between Centre and Sindh likely to affect relief efforts

As the lockdown imposed by the Sindh government in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic is entering its third week tomorrow (Monday), many families of even the middle class are running out of their patience and resources. However, in this hour when all that we need is a joint strategy for the people, the federal and provincial governments seem to be at odds over how they should take care of the needy.

he federal and provincial tiers of the government have currently announced three programmes for the needy people. One of them is the brainchild of the federal government, whereas the other two have been envisaged by the Sindh government.

All these programmes are trying to provide relief to the people through some mechanism the district level. However, there seems to be no coordination among them and all the three seem to be working in isolation.

Till date, none of these three programmes has catered to a significant number of people in this hour of need.

The federal government has announced the Ehsaas Emergency Cash Programme, under which 786,000 families are to be identified in the 23 districts of Sindh by the provincial government. With a monthly allocation of Rs3,000 for each of these families, they will be provided with a four-month lump sum amount of Rs12,000.

The Sindh government, in the meantime, has announced the Corona Emergency Ration Package, for which it has released Rs580 million for the distribution of food items to daily wagers and allocated Rs20 million for each district of the province.

Additionally, the provincial government has released Rs569.604 million from the provincial Zakat Fund Account, from which a total of 94,934 families will get an amount of Rs6,000 each. The provincial government has also decided to launch a mobile application for the disbursement of cash to the needy people through a mobile cash transfer mechanism.

When all these allocations through different programmes seem inadequate given the magnitude of the crisis, a bigger problem is that the district administration has been facing immense trouble in the implementation of the programmes.

The only thing that is common in all the three programmes is the involvement of district administrations. As for Karachi, there are six districts in the city comprising a total of 209 union committees for its urban areas and 38 union councils for its rural localities.

There are also six cantonment boards in the city, which comprise wards instead of union councils. Some of the cantonment boards even lie in multiple districts of the city.

The District East has 31 union committees; District Central has 51; District West has 46; District South has 31, of which the Saddar zone has 16 and the Lyari zone has 15; District Korangi has 37 and District Malir has 13 union committees. Of the 38 union councils in the rural areas of the city, 32 are in District Malir and six are in District West.