Speakers at a conference on Thursday emphasised the need to lay off all loans taken by farmers and small growers in the flood affected areas of Pakistan.
This they said at a two-day conference on ‘Flood and Beyond: Recovery, Reconstruction and Reforms’ organised jointly by Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), South Asia Partnership (SAP) Pakistan, Sungi Development Foundation and Center for Peace & Civil Society at a local hotel. Speakers said neither irrigation infrastructure is safe nor are farmers in the position to resume their livelihood activities, cultivating their lands.
Development experts, flood victims and government officials discussed the effects, interventions and government role to help the flood affected people. Representatives of civil society organisations, who helped the local communities in rescue, relief and early recovery initiatives all over the country, shared their observations and experiences in the conference.
Noted architect and town planner and Chairman of Urban Resource Centre, Arif Hassan while giving his comments aid now when the civil society and urban philanthropists came forward to help the internally displaced persons (IDPs) at the scattered relief camps, there is a need to strengthen this relationship. “In fact it will bring positive change,” he said.
After the flood, upper middle class, urban philanthropists and civil society organisations initiated relief work together on the same directives to help the needy people in difficult times. This relationship should be strengthened further, he added.
He said it is a the positive change that rural IDPs took shelter in urban centers and they have witnessed a ‘new world’, which has inspired them and many of them want to live here and find new sources of livelihood. The people who have been living miserable lives in tribal and feudal systems and find it unviable to return to native areas have a valid reason to stay here. The government functionaries, who want to launch resettlement projects for them should give sympathetic consideration to their choice. “If they do not like to return to same system they should be accommodated as per their choice.”
Hassan further said the debt issue is important and dominant in the country’s politics. The debt by middlemen on these farmers is related to the country’s political culture, which has destroyed governance and is cause of industrial failure. About the issue of minorities, who faced discrimination during their displacement and stay in relief camps, Arif Hassan said “to eliminate this thinking we have to introduce new political values. But there is a question that after all who and how will take initiative in this regard.” He suggested that the people should work together for their rehabilitation and resettlement.
The other speakers said that since the majority of the people are directly affiliated with agriculture sector which in the flood affected areas, have been completely destroyed, the farmers are unable to resume their livelihood activities. It is the common phenomenon in Sindh and Punjab that farmers take small loans from landlords and lenders and return the same after the harvest, especially in the cash crop they return the debt easily.
However due to the flood this year, neither crops are there nor are the farmers in position to return their debt. Landlords and lenders are pressurising farmers (their traditional clients) to return their debt at any cost. In this regard, they said, when the government has announced to initiate rehabilitation of the affected people, it should take the issue of ‘debt’ in the consideration on humanitarian ground before launching any move. Because the landless farmers looking under stress, wanting help to come out of this social and economical quagmire.
By our correspondent, The News, Karachi