1.5L hit by floods, 18K stranded on rooftops

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, August 20

As over 50 villages in Jalandhar are inundated due to floods, the district administration has assessed the losses at nearly Rs 700 crore in Jalandhar alone.

Going by the fact that nearly 30,000 acres of fields have got submerged in waters, the administration is expecting that nearly Rs 30 crore would have to be doled out through the state government as girdawari. “Funds would also be required to repair fallen electricity poles and restore power connections. The water works in the villages too would have to be overhauled. Even the condition of roads would have surely gone worse and would require repair,” said an administrative officer deployed for making tentative assessment of the losses that would have been incurred.

The administration is also worried about the property losses that the residents would have faced.

“It surely is enormous as we expect nearly 1.5 lakh villagers to have got affected. But for us the priority is to bring out the residents to safe locations,” said the officer.

Deputy Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma said: “While we have brought several people to safe locations, there are still an expected 18,000 people stranded on rooftops. We have noticed that they have some ration, including wheat flour and pulses, which they may be able to cook but their biggest problem is lack of clean water. While there is muddy water all around them, many of them do not have any potable water to drink. Their taps have submerged. Motors cannot work as power connections have got disrupted. Hence, we have roped in Indian Air Force teams for dropping food and water packets tomorrow morning”.

The DC said choppers would start flying tomorrow at 8 am from the Jalandhar Cantonment. “We have given them location coordinates where food items are required to be dropped. The choppers would fly at low height, deliver food and even help rescue some villagers who need to be moved to safer locations. The food items would include rusks, biscuits, parathas and cooked vegetable.

Meanwhile, Senior Adviser to the Chief Minister Lt Gen T S Shergill (retd) said today that the state government would chalk out a comprehensive action plan to avoid the damages caused by flood in the Sutlej and Beas rivers in future.

Today, in Mau Sahib village during a visit to flood-affected areas of the Phillaur subdivision, Shergill said the government had sought a detailed report from the Deputy Commissioner concerned to identify causes and solutions to avoid this kind of situation in the future. He said the emphasis would be given to strengthen the banks of both these rivers under the action plan, besides clearing the natural flow of water.

He also asked the ADC, Jalandhar, Jasvir Singh, to speed up the work to fill up the breaches at all four points in the Phillaur subdivision as the water level decreased nearly 1 foot since yesterday.

He said the district administration had set up 18 relief camps at various schools, dharamshalas and gurdwaras. Cooked food and drinking water were provided to over 1,500 people at the relief camps, besides medical camps were also set up in affected areas.

The Senior Adviser has also asked officials to depute revenue officials to conduct a special girdawari as soon as the water level decreases.

Prominent among those others present on the occasion included senior Congress leader Capt Harminder Singh and Phillaur SDM Rajesh Sharma.

‘Depute revenue officials to conduct special girdawari’

Senior Adviser to the Chief Minister Lt Gen TS Shergill (retd) said the district administration had set up 18 relief camps at various schools, dharamshalas and gurdwaras. Cooked food and drinking water were provided to over 1,500 people at the relief camps, besides medical camps were also set up in affected areas. The Senior Adviser has also asked officials to depute revenue officials to conduct a special girdawari as soon as the water level decreases.