GUWAHATI: With two waves of floods occurring since June 13 till date this year in Assam taking 41 lives, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has asked the Revenue and Disaster Management department to build high-rise shelters to give succour to the people affected by flood every year.
Reviewing the impact of the second wave of flood that has so far hit six districts, in a meeting held at the CM’s conference room on Friday evening, Sonowal said permanent structures should be built to save the people from perennial flood in the state.
Sonowal asked Revenue and Disaster Management department to come up with model estimate to construct high-rise structure in the flood prone areas. “The high-rise structure will be a multi-purpose building which can be used as safe shelter during flood. During non-flood season the building can be used for socio-cultural functions and other community related activities” the CM suggests.
He also asked the department to prepare model estimate for converting the dykes as road cum embankments to lend capacity building as well as economic prosperity of the rural areas.
It may be noted that during June 13 to August 3, Assam has had two waves of flood affecting 163 villages and 10.99 lakh people. Sonowal asked Revenue and Disaster Management department to ensure that administrations in the affected districts should remain on their toes to reach out to the flood affected people and expedite rescue and relief work. Altogether 388 relief camps have been set up and 440 relief distribution centres have been opened to distribute relief items to the flood affected people.
Sonowal said that the SDRF personnel should be provided with modern gadgets and two battalions would be raised to pan out the services of SDRF battalions in all the affected areas of the state. So far 41 deaths have already been reported and Chief Minister Sonowal directed ex-gratia amount to be handed over to the next of the kin of the deceasedwithin 48 hours.
Sonowal also asked Revenue and Disaster Management department to develop inter-departmental synergy and together with Agriculture Department to carry out district mapping and segregate 27 lakh farmers of the state into three categories and train them for three types of cropping depending on intensity of flood that affect several parts of the state during monsoon. Sonowal also directed Revenue and Disaster Management department to maintain a close vigil on 24X7 basis and assess flood data to face any kind of exigency at any given point in time.