: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday visited relief camps set-up for flood-affected people in Patna, and instructed officials to focus on the quality of relief materials and sanitation for women. There was no let up in flood fury in Bihar with eight fresh deaths reported on Thursday.
Meanwhile, water in major Uttar Pradesh rivers are receding though they are still flowing above the danger mark. West Bengal’s Malda and Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district witnessed one death each in flood and rain—related incidents. With the fresh death, the flood toll rose to 37 in Bihar, with Bhojpur district accounting for the maximum 12 deaths.
Over two million people from 1,115 villages of 12 districts in Bihar have been affected by devastating floods forcing over 1.7 lakh to take shelter in altogether 179 relief camps set-up in various affected areas. The government has also deployed 160 medical teams at these relief camps, and set-up 49 shelters for animals.
“We’re plying 1,507 boats and we have pressed several teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) to take people out of the flood but people at some places are reluctant to come out,” said Mr. Vyasji, principal secretary of the Bihar State Disaster Management Authority.
CM inspects camps Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Minister for Water Resources Rajiv Ranjan Singh and other officials inspected several relief camps in Patna district, from Maner to Athamalgola. Mr. Kumar checked the quality of food and asked flood victims about the help from the government. He also instructed officials to focus more on the quality of food, and sanitation for women, at the camps. The Chief Minister also asked officials to provide monetary help to children born in the relief camps. Earlier, reports had said babies, since called ‘Gangaputras’ (sons of the Ganga), were being born in relief camps and rescue boats.
However, at some places like Samastipur, Chhapra and Patna’s Didarganj, flood-hit people protested against inadequate relief from the government. At Samastipur, angry protestors even took the Circle Officer hostage, while in Chhapra they protested outside the residence of the district magistrate. In Patna’s Didarganj area, protestors blocked the national highway for an hour and demanded immediate help from the government. Later, district officials reached Chhapra and Didarganj to dispense relief to aggrieved families.
Opposition parties charged the Nitish Kumar government with failing to provide succour to flood-hit people on time. “The Nitish Kumar government has completely failed in providing the required relief to those living in camps…even today, during his visit to these camps, he couldn’t stand at a relief camp for more than five minutes,” charged senior state BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi. Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan, who too visited the flood-affected areas of his parliamentary constituency, Hajipur in the Vaishali district, alleged that “whatever is being provided in the name of relief to the flood-hit people is just eyewash…people are managing and living on their own”.
(With inputs from PTI)
