The Centre has released a sum of Rs 130.65 crore to repair and restore damaged infrastructures due to floods and landslides in Manipur in the year 2017 apart from providing financial assistance to the affected people.
Disclosing this, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Monday said the amount released this time is one of the biggest amounts as relief assistance in the last 15 years even though the State Relief and Disaster Management department demanded a sum of Rs 435 crore as relief assistance from the Central government.
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Biren was speaking to reporters at his official secretariat while congratulating the State Health Department officials for getting a national award called ‘Express Public Health Award 2018’ in the category of ‘Most efficiently run Public Health Programme by a State government’ for its successful implementation of the Chief Ministergi Haksel gi Tengbang (CMHT), a three-month-old health scheme in Manipur, during a Health Summit in Pune recently.
“It may not fulfil the 100 per cent requirement but the said amount released by the Centre will be distributed to the concerned parties including the disaster affected families through the concerned Deputy Commissioners of the respective districts,” Biren added.
The year 2017 emerged as a year of frequent floods and landslides in Manipur due to unseasonal and intense rainfalls since May-end. It led to floods across the State in hills and valley districts till the year-end.
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Low-lying areas in Manipur valley comprising five districts – Imphal West, Imphal East, Bishnupur, Kakching and Thoubal – known as rice bowl of the State – were inundated for long as flood-hit State for five times. The hill districts also faced landslides and were cut off from the rest of the country.
Senapati, a hill district, faced worst-ever floods in the last three decades.
A huge area of agricultural land measuring around 80,000 hectares were affected during the flood.A large number of bridges, roads, schools, etc., were also damaged.
In view of the flood in 2017, reports in local media said the production of paddy in the State has been reduced to about 2,43,360 tonnes despite the introduction of short duration rice varieties. Last year, the State produced 6,45,600 tonnes of rice.