K. Thangavel, MLA, has said that relief and rehabilitation in flood affected areas in the city had been going at a slow pace owing to lack of coordination between the district and Corporation administrations. “Both have been functioning more or less in a parallel manner, which, in turn, is slowing down the rehabilitation of the residents in the flood-hit colonies,” the CPI(M) leader told reporters here on Friday.
Mr. Thangavel was of the opinion that the district administration lacked the expertise needed to handle emergency situations arising out of calamities like flash flood. “This is evident from the sloppy manner in which Collector M. Mathivanan and his team carried out the relief operations.
Even 72 hours after water receded following the flood in the early hours of Monday, rubbish/silt could still be seen lying in many hamlets and foul smell emanating from the houses that got inundated,” he said.
The officials, according to him, also lacked the knowledge of what government machinery will have to do for people whose entire paraphernalia were taken away by the flood waters.
Mr. Thangavel said that the district administration did not include him in any of the consultative meetings held to evaluate the damages as well as to chalk out action plan for restoring normalcy in the lives of those affected, even though almost entire flood-hit colonies falls under his constituency (Tirupur South). He reiterated the need to augment financial and welfare assistances to the flood affected families on a need-basis instead of uniformly giving certain quantity of rice, cash and kerosene.
V. S. Isaac Aiyya, national president of Akila Indiya Jananayaka Makkal Katchi, asked the state government to increase the solatium amount from Rs. 2 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh.
