Centre seeks report on flood damages in Punjab

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked the state government to send an assessment report of the damage caused by floods within three months. This comes as the Centre has declared the Punjab floods a disaster of “severe nature”.

A senior government official said the decision recognising the severity of the floods was intimated to the state government by the MHA on September 16.

It was said that in such conditions, financial aid is provided through the State Disaster Response Fund, supplementing it with funds from the National Disaster Response Fund after assessment based on the visit of an inter-ministerial team. Union Ministers Jitendra Singh and Jitin Prasada had visited flood-hit areas in Pathankot and Gurdaspur to assess the damage.

A government functionary said though the decision would mean higher allocation of funds, exact details of the implication of the MHA order was being examined.

Chief Secretary KAP Sinha on Friday convened a meeting of heads of all departments and deputy commissioners to prepare a detailed assessment report.

Rajya Sabha MP Vikramjit Singh Sahney in a statement said he had written to Rao Inderjit Singh, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, urging immediate recognition of the Punjab floods as a major calamity.