The New Nation - Internet Edition

Shah Abdul Hannan

The government is doing its best to solve the problems of rehabilation of commumicatio, agrivculture ,housing and feeding programme for the next four months in the SIDR affected areas.Despite some problems of co-ordination the government deserves praise for its handling of the massive problem.The NGOs and some foreign governments have also helped .The government has also planned for more construction of shelters in the affected areas.

I suggest to the government to take care of some medium and long term issues relating to cyclones and hurricanes which I describe below-

I suggest to withdraw people from very small islands deep in the sea which have not become fit for human habitation. The land in such undeveloped soft land islands is not fit for building shelters which can withstand hurricane.These island should be restricted only for afforestations and people should not be allowed to settle there. The people there , may be about one hundred thousands , should be rehabilitated by the government in the coastal areas where a large part of land is government land .

They may be permitted to go there for fishing in the safe periods of June to mid-september and mid-december to March with permission from appropriate government agency that is land administration or forest authority.They must not be allowed to settle These islands are also not suitable for cattle farmingThis should be kept in viewt

I also suggest to undertake a twenty year long term interest free house finance program of standard size of three storey buildings so that at least ten such buildings come up in each village which can serve as additional shelters also for neighboring people.

The ground floor or Ist storey can save also poultry, goats, sheep if not big cattle.

We can minimize crop loss by crop planning , sowing crops which can be harvested before cylone seasons of April-May and before October-November.

I want to emphasize that Allah has made some areas storm prone and we know that these will come from time to time in these areas.These are not fixed natural laws like movement of earth and planets.The storms, rains, floods and earthquakes are variable natural laws, they come from time to time but time is not fixed.

If we live in historically well-known cyclone zones, without building shelters and in lands which are not fit for habitation, we are dishonoring natural laws made by Allah for some higher purposes.

The scientists also say that nothing in nature is without purpose. If we disobey Allah's law, we will be destroying ourselves by our own hands as Allah has said in the Quran " Do not throw your selves to destruction by your own hands or deeds"

The same rule applies for earthquake prone and flood prone areas and if appropriate measures are not taken, we should offend the law of Allah in a similar manner .This should not happen. We should remember this point apart from the fact that there is test for all of us in what happens. We hope every body will think over these points.

(The writer is a former secretary of the government)