Punjab News- CM for speedy disbursement of relief to flood victims

Chandigarh, September 18, 2013: Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today asked the State Relief, Rehabilitation & Disaster Management department to ensure speedy disbursement of relief to the flood victims in a fool proof and transparent manner, who sustained extensive damage to their standing crops, houses besides the loss of cattle across the state.

Badal was presiding over a high level meeting to review the disbursement of the relief to the flood affected families especially in the water logged areas here at Chief Minister’s residence this morning.

The Chief Minister asked the Financial Commissioner Revenue to entrust the monitoring of the work related to special girdawari (revenue survey) for accessing the actual crop damage to the PCS officers for ensuring that compensation was actually paid to the concerned flood victims well before the onset of Kharif season. He emphasized the need to prioritize the work of disbursement of relief in such a manner that compensation in case of loss of human life, 100% damage to crops and houses should be given first preference over the rest of the cases where the damage was minimal. He categorically said that the PCS officers would be held solely accountable for any laxity or dereliction right from the stage of survey till the completion of disbursement of relief to the victims, in case of any lapse.

Badal also directed the Principal Secretary Irrigation to prepare a time bound action plan to mitigate the problem of water logging on permanent basis, which had been a major cause for the recent floods in the malwa belt. He also asked the PWD, Mandi Board and Rural Development & Panchayats to chalk out a joint strategy for the repair of rural link roads on the top priority, which had been badly damaged due to the recent floods. Likewise, he also asked the Principal Secretary Water Supply & Sanitation to immediately get the water works repaired to ensure restoration of domestic water supply at the earliest.

Meanwhile, the FCR informed the Chief Minister that as per the reports till now 41 human lives have been lost, standing crops over an area of nearly 4.10 lac acres have been damaged, 13,000 houses have been vanished besides about 414 cattle have been perished. He told Badal the total amount of relief worked out so far was to the tune of Rs. 233 crore. Apart from this, he also mentioned that infrastructure of PWD and Drainage department have been badly damaged and needed immediate repair. According to him, crops in 1.60 lac acres have been damaged in Sri Muktsar Sahib district followed by 56,000 acres in Fazilka, 50,000 acres in Ferozepur and 45,000 acres in Faridkot, 39,000 acres in Kapurthala and 33,000 acres in Tarn Taran  due to floods.

The Chief Secretary told Badal that he would convene a meeting of the officers related with the disbursement of relief on October 3 to review the progress and ensure that the flood victims who suffered the major loss due to floods were duly compensated.

Prominent amongst others who were present in the meeting included Chief Secretary Rakesh Singh, Financial Commissioner Revenue NS Kang, Principal Secretary Water Supply and Sanitation Suresh Kumar, Principal Secretary Irrigation Sarvesh Kaushal, Principal Secretary Finance DP Reddy, KJS Cheema and Gaggandip Singh Brar (both Special Principal Secretaries to the Chief Minister), Secretary Revenue Sarvjit Singh, Secretary PWD (B&R) PS Aujla and Secretary Mandi Board Deepinder Singh.