One year after Katrina, Jindal speaks out

Indian-American Congressman from Louisiana Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal on Tuesday slammed the bureaucracy that was interfering in the recovery process of people affected by last year's devastating Hurricane Katrina, which left some 1600 persons dead and hundreds homeless.

On the first anniversary of the disaster, Jindal, the only Indian origin lawmaker in the Congress, said 'there is still a lot of bureaucracy and red tape interfering with the recovery'.

"There are still many challenges ahead of us... our levees haven't been rebuilt properly, so we still don't have the adequate flood and hurricane protection we need," the Republican representative said.

"We still have thousands of people out of their homes, living in trailers or in temporary shelters. And most importantly, we've got to get people back to work," he said.

"There's been a tremendously generous effort from the country. There's still a lot of bureaucracy and red tape interfering with the recovery," he said adding the "red tape" was preventing money from reaching the hands of the affected.

"Congress approved $6 billion for homeowners and others in December, another $4 billion in May. Only now -- just now is the state beginning to get that (money) into the hands of families, into the hands of individuals," he said.

"Wasted money, wasted time. As taxpayers, we should worry about our dollars being wasted. As residents of Louisiana, we don't have time to waste. People want to get back to work. We need to help them do that as quickly as possible," the lawmaker noted.

Hurricane Katrina killed around 1800 people in the Mexican coast, some 1600 in the Louisiana state alone, whose largest city New Orleans suffered the most damage.