Strengthening state government’s efforts in tackling the situation triggered by the current wave of flood which affected 31 districts of the state, central government on Tuesday released Rs. 251.55 crore being first instalment of SDRF for the state to deal with flood.
Close on the heels of the flood review taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, the release of the first instalment of Rs. 251.55 by the Centre, would strengthen state government’s efforts in reaching out to the flood affected people and providing them relief and rescue, chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal said.
He thanked Prime Minister Modi for showing his concern to the cause of the state.
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Chief Minister Sonowal also thanked union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat for having come to Assam, had an aerial survey of the flood in the state, visited the relief camps and interacted with the camp inmates.
He took stock of the magnitude of flood and the devastations it caused to the state.
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Later, the union minister reviewed the flood management activities carried out by the state government at conference hall of LGBI Airport in the city in the presence of chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal.
The CEO of Assam State Disaster Management Authority Aruna Rajouria gave a presentation on the extent of damages causes by the 2nd wave of flood.
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Till now, 43 lakh people in 4,157 villages under 113 revenue circles of 31 districts have been affected.
A total of 183 relief camps are operational in the state and a total of 311 relief distribution centres have been set up in the 14 districts.
The union minister took note of the different causes of the flood and exceptionally more-than-average rainfall over Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in the past few days which contributed to devastating scale of floods.
Water resource department apprised the union minister about the maintenance of the 4474.42 kms of embankments in the state and Rs 1550 crore project for the circular road cum embankment in Majuli district in the state.
Sekhawat also directed the state water resource department officials to submit a detailed report to his ministry regarding the progress of 34 projects going on in the state and the bottlenecks faced by these projects.
He assured of expediting the payments of funds for the project and sort out other technical issues affecting the projects.
He also directed the both Central and state government officials to sit regularly to streamline all issues regarding the water resource department projects and achieve time bound completion of all central government projects.