Jammu, March 7 (Scoop News) – Minister for Revenue and Rehabilitation, Raman Bhalla has said that a detailed project report of Rs 258.06 crore have been submitted to the Centre for compensating masses and ensuring permanent restoration of public utility in flood affected districts of the State including districts of Leh and Kargil.
This was stated by the Minister in reply to a question by Dr. Mustafa Kamal in the Legislative Assembly here today.
The Minister said that special package of Rs 125 crore was announced by Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh out of Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund, for rescue and relief of the families affected by cloud burst and restoration of the damages to public infrastructure in Ladakh region only. He said until now an amount of Rs 16.53 crore has been spent by Deputy Commissioners of Leh and Kargil for providing ex-gratia assistance to the next of kin of deceased and families whose houses have got damaged.
The Minister said that Government has released Rs 27.8 crore for restoration of public utilities in Leh district and so far an amount of Rs 15.50 crore have been expended for the purpose under various sectors in the area.
He said District Administration Srinagar has not projected the demand for restoration of public utilities in Hazratbal constituency affected due to torrential rains under State disaster response fund norms. Nor the same was highlighted before inter Ministerial team which visited the State for making on-spot assessment of the situation.
The Minister said that the loss caused due to torrential rains is not assessed because excess rainfall not notified as national calamity under the guidelines issued by the Centre providing therein the admissibility of assistance. He, however, said in respect of the losses caused due to occurrence if notified national calamities like floods, avalanches, cloud burst etc., the losses are assessed and after such assessment relief as admissible under rules is provided to the affected families.
He said that due to the incessant spells of rainfall in the State during 3rd quarter of current financial year followed by flash-floods and cloud burst damages was caused both to life, public and private property.
The Legislators, Ch. Mohammad Ramzan, G.M.Saroori, Basharat Bukhari, Rafi Ahmad Mir, Ashwani Kumar Sharma, Harshdev Singh, Vaqar Rasool and Kafil-ur-Rehman raised supplementaries and demanded relief and restoration of public utility affected due to floods in their constituencies. The Minister said that under the norms prescribed by the Government for the purpose have been initiated to provide relief to the affected families and restoration of public utilities affected due to flash floods. He assured the members that genuine demands in this regard of their constituencies would be redressed.