PM opens emergencies operation centre

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar on Thursday inaugurated the newly established state-of-the-art National Emergencies Operation Centre (NEOC) to help in coordinated efforts to manage natural disasters.

Established at the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) headquarters, the center would also help in disaster risk reduction and mitigation of damages. Kakar lauded the establishment of NEOC and emphasized the importance of disaster-resilient infrastructure and policy framework.

He said that despite being one of the least contributors to carbon emissions globally, Pakistan was one of the top countries affected by climate change. “Climate change is a real challenge that will keep haunting our future generations unless we take such concrete steps,” he reiterated. He said that the world needed to step forward and help developing countries like Pakistan to cope with the adverse effects of climate change.

In the briefing, Prime Minister Kakar was told that NEOC would serve as a hub of all inputs related to climate change, disaster management and predictive modelling for national emergencies. First, of its kind in Pakistan and the region, the NEOC will evolve the capacity to predict future disasters with accuracy about likely locations, time of impact and damage intensity.

It would generate a coordinated response, guiding provincial and district-level disaster management authorities. The need was felt for a platform to perform the functions for developing a national collage of disaster monitoring. It can estimate the vulnerability needs of the areas and determine the support from global partners in the form of a real-time National Common Operating Picture.

NDMA Chairman Lieutenant General Inam Haider Malik conducted the briefing session for the prime minister as well as ambassadors, UN organizations’ country heads, global NGOs and experts who attended the event.

Meanwhile, caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, calling the Kashmir dispute an unfinished agenda of the Partition, resolved that Pakistan would continue its political, moral and diplomatic support to the people of Kashmir.

The prime minister, in a meeting with Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir Chaudhry Anwarul Haq, said that Pakistan would stand by the Kashmiris until the issue was resolved as per the aspirations of the Kashmiri people and the resolutions of the UN Security Council.

The AJK prime minister lauded PM Kakar for raising the voice in support of the Kashmiri people at the forum of the United Nations General Assembly. “We, the people of Kashmir, are grateful to you for exposing Indian atrocities in Occupied Kashmir before the world,” the AJK prime minister added.