By Our Staff Reporter
Haridwar, 21 Jul: Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami reviewed the progress of relief and rescue works at Dam Kothi in connection with the waterlogging in district Haridwar on Friday. He discussed the situation with the higher officials in this regard and asked them to keep a continuous eye on developments.
At the meeting, the Chief Minister obtained detailed information regarding arrangements for drinking water, health, communication, electricity, etc., and directed that it should be ensured that all arrangements operate normally in waterlogged areas.
He also asked that damage caused to the crops due to water logging be assessed and quick solutions offered to the farmers. The Chief Minister said that adequate arrangements for fodder, etc., should be made for the animals and adequate stock of fodder also maintained.
There was a detailed discussion regarding water logging in many places due to encroachment. The CM instructed that wherever problems are coming up due to encroachment, these should be dealt with strictly.
District Magistrate Dhiraj Singh Garbyal provided detailed information regarding the total rainfall received in the rural and urban areas of the district in the past days, due to which the situation of water logging was created. He informed the CM that a total of 34 teams of 579 members, including SDRF, Water Police, Revenue, Fire Brigade, Police, departmental teams and voluntary organisations are continuously working in flood-affected areas like Laksar, Roorkee, etc., and the Health Department, Local Bodies and Panchayati Raj Department are spraying insecticides on a large scale to prevent the spread of epidemics in these affected areas. The necessary medicines have been procured. He said that relief kits, food, etc., are being distributed in flood-affected sensitive areas.
The District Magistrate stated that financial assistance of Rs 36.27 lakh has been given to 860 beneficiaries under flood-affected urban and rural areas of Haridwar, Roorkee, Laksar and Bhagwanpur through house grants, ex-gratia grants, etc. He added that 15,796 people have been affected by water-logging in the district, many of whom have shifted to relatives’ and rented houses and 81 families have been shifted to relief centres.
He said that the maximum damage has been done to 52 properties of the Public Works Department, on which work has been started at all places and funds have been made available in advance to all the functional organisations. Apart from this, help is being given to the people affected by water logging through the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund, voluntary organisations, etc.
Present at the meeting were Roorkee MLA Pradeep Batra, Bhagwanpur MLA Mamta Rakesh, Laksar MLA Shahzad, Ranipur MLA Adesh Chauhan, former MLA Sanjay Gupta, District Panchayat President Kiran Chaudhary, BJP Roorkee District President Shobharam Prajapati, etc., who informed the Chief Minister about the situation in their respective areas.
Others present included Haridwar City MLA Madan Kaushik, former Cabinet Minister Yatishwaranand, BJP District President, Haridwar, Sandeep Goyal, former District President Dr Jaipal Singh, Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Singh, Chief Development Officer Prateek Jain, Vice President, HRDA, Anshul Singh, Additional District Magistrate (Finance and Revenue) Bir Singh Budiyal and officers of related departments.
