Central team takes stock of flood damage in Assam

A seven-member Central team is in flood-ravaged Assam to assess the extent of damage caused by the devastating deluge in 26 districts of the state.

The Central team's inspection, which was earlier promised by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh during his flood damage assessing visit on July 2, would focus on the extent of damage caused by the flood to the standing crop, infrastructure, national highways.

Making a presentation before the Central fact-finding team, Assam government has stated that it required an estimated Rs 11,316 crore to make for losses caused by the devastating wave of flood.

The Central team has been divided into three groups to make on the spot survey of flood damage in eastern Assam, western Assam and two hill districts of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao.

An official source informed that the state government has asked for Rs 2,526 crore immediate grant from the Centre under disaster management head and another Rs 8,790 crore as mid-term requirement.

As per the assessment made by Assam government, it needs an immediate amount of Rs 1,100 crore for rehabilitation of flood and erosion-hit people, Rs 10 crore for restoration of water supply, Rs 20 crore for restoration of flood-damaged infrastructure in national parks and other wildlife protection areas and Rs 600 crore for restoration of state roads damaged by flood.

The mid-term requirement includes Rs 3,460 crore for strengthening embankments, Rs 4,630 crore for implementation of national highway projects and Rs 700 crore for mitigating flood-related problems in Guwahati city.

Chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Wednesday held a meeting with all the top officials of concerned departments to review the relief, rescue and rehabilitation operations in the flood-hit state. He issued instructions for smooth distribution of relief materials and asked health and public health department officials to all possible steps to preventive outbreak of epidemic diseases after the flood recedes.

Officials have been asked to facilitate immediate disbursement of Rs 1.5 lakh ex-gratia payment as announced by the state government to the next of kin of those 126 persons who have lost their lives in current wave of flood and associated landslides in the state.

Meanwhile, shortage of drinking water has hit flood-hit all over the state as most of the tube wells in rural areas were submerged in flood water.