The Congress on Sunday alleged that the Narendra Modi government had utterly failed to douse the forest fire that destroyed thousands of acres of forests and claimed lives of wild animals in Uttarakhand.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said, “While the Modi government is fuelling political crisis in a peaceful State, it has miserably failed to tackle a major environmental tragedy.” The State has not been able the douse the flame owing to political instability and bureaucratic lethargy.
Speaking to presspersons here, he alleged that the Centre had failed to mobilise Army and Air Force personnel to control the devastating fire that caused environmental degradation and destruction of forest habitat.
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By declaring Uttarakhand as “fire disaster State”, he urged the Centre to respond to the grievances of the people by releasing funds under the National Disaster Response Fund.
Noting that the magnitude of the fire enhanced on account of the President’s Rule in the State, Mr. Surjewala said the civil administration on the ground had done nothing to contain the flames.
The democratically-elected government could have deployed more personnel to control the devastating fire that spread over the State.
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He alleged that Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar had not taken the incident “seriously”.
‘The Modi govt. has failed to tackle a major environmental tragedy’