The State government will approach the Centre for the revival of the Kuttanad package, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.
He was speaking at a high-level meeting convened to review the flood relief operations in Alappuzha and Kottayam districts at the TDMC Golden Jubilee auditorium here on Sunday.
“We will approach the Union government to initiate measures to complete the revival of the Kuttanad package. A draft plan will be submitted to the Centre for the protection of water resources and construction of panchayat-level storage facilities in the region,” Mr. Vijayan said.
The Chief Minister said the government would contemplate setting up of a flood warning system in Kuttanad. “The State government will make effective interventions in Kuttanad. Multi-purpose shelter homes will be constructed in different parts of the region for shifting people during floods. The construction technology that prevents entry of water into a building during floods will be experimented. For this, we will bring amendments to the legislation, if needed. Solar power projects will be set up to deal with power outages during floods. The government will consider declaring a moratorium on agricultural loans. The next Cabinet meeting will take further steps in this regard,” he said. Special officers would be appointed in all departments to coordinate the relief operations. Mr. Vijayan directed the Education Deputy Director to prepare a detailed plan to compensate the lost classes due to floods.
Further. Mr. Vijayan said panchayat and taluk level adalats would be conducted to help people who lost documents in floods. He directed the District Collectors to approach banks to provide loans to the flood-affected people. The Kerala Financial Corporation and cooperative banks should consider providing loans to small scale traders, the Chief Minister said.
Mr. Vijayan assured that effective steps had been taken to tackle disease outbreaks in flood-hit areas.
