Assam cabinet minister for the Public Health Engineering department and guardian minister for Cachar district, Jayanta Mallabaruah, who is on a three-day visit to the Barak valley, arrived on Thursday and reviewed the flood situation with the district administration.
During the review meeting with the deputy commissioner, local MLA and senior officials of the administration and concerned departments at the DC's conference hall in Silchar, Jayanta Mallabaruah inquired about the damage caused by the flood, and the relief distribution process.
The minister directed that priority must be accorded to relief and rescue operations and to ensure that the relief materials are distributed to the people affected by the deluge.
He also directed the authorities to ensure sufficient deployment of NDRF personnel in flood hit areas to rescue flood-affected people of the Cachar district.
Mallabaruah said that Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has been closely monitoring the flood situation and is in constant touch with the central government to deal with the situation.
Earlier, district commissioner, Rohan Kumar Jha gave a power-point presentation regarding the damage caused by the two waves of floods in the district and said that nine people died unexpectedly and Rs 4 lakh has already been handed to the relatives of these nine people.
The district commissioner said that a damage assessment committee has been formed at the revenue circle level and this committee will submit the report of the flood-damaged houses to the administration by July 20.
It was informed that 82 PWD roads have been damaged by the recent floods. Besides, 140 drinking water projects were damaged, out of which 118 have been restored by the PHE department. In addition to that seven health institutions have also been damaged by the recent floods .
Moreover, 1,017 hectares of agricultural land were affected by the recent floods in the entire Cachar district.
Jha further stated that a total of 128 relief camps have been set up in Cachar district in the first wave of flood and 85 relief camps were set up in the second wave of floods, where 18,919 people are sheltered. It was informed that 190 APDCL's DTR have been damaged by the recent floods. A total of 322 medical camps were set up on the first wave where 3,265 people have been treated by the medical teams and in the second wave of flood,ca total of 155 medical camps have been set up and 6,715 people have been treated.
A portal "SAHAYATA" for damage assessment related to flood and an app called "RAHAT" for overall disaster response in the Cachar district was formally launched by the guardian mnister on the occasion.
The meeting was also attended by Silchar MLA Dipayan Chakraborty, Lakhipur MLA Koushik Rai, Udharbond MLA Mihir Kanti Shom and MLA Katigorah, Khalil Uddin Majumder.
Meanwhile, Jayanta Mallabaruah visited the relief camp at Tarapur Girls High School and distributed relief material to 492 families at Shishu Mandir School in Ward 26. He also distributed relief material to 750 families in Tapabannagar under Ambikaapur GP. The minister also visited a relief camp at Cachar High School where he interacted with the inmates and assured them of all possible help from the government.
Later, the minister spoke to the media and expressed his satisfaction with the administration's efforts for flood relief activities in the district and said that the Assam CM is very much concerned with the damages caused by the flood and has been constantly following up with the relief distribution process. He further informed that compensation will be provided to the flood-affected victims.
