E-Paper
Punjab CM Mann forms 3-member panel for flood relief ops
Chairing a high-level meeting to review the situation of floods, Mann said that the committee comprising senior officers of revenue, water resources, and food and civil supplies department will remain permanently stationed at Amritsar and other flood-affected districts.
Chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday constituted a high-powered committee comprising three top officers of the state to supervise the relief and rescue operations in the flood-affected districts of the state on a day-to-day basis.
Chairing a high-level meeting to review the situation of floods, Mann said that the committee comprising senior officers of revenue, water resources, and food and civil supplies department will remain permanently stationed at Amritsar and other flood-affected districts. He asked the deputy commissioners and other officers to ensure that the directions of this committee are implemented in right earnest to provide succour to the flood-affected people. He said the state government is fully committed to bailing people out in this hour of crisis.
The CM also asked the chief secretary to visit the flood ravaged areas and ensure the work of relief and rescue was carried on more effectively. “The heavy flow of water from hilly areas has created havoc for the state. To date, 14.11 lakh cusecs of water has been received in the river Ravi. This is the highest discharge the state has ever received as it was 11.20 lakh cusecs when the state had witnessed severe floods in the year 1988,” he added.
Mann said the state government has already written to Haryana and Rajasthan to withdraw maximum water from the rivers. He said the Indian Army has already been deployed in the five flood-affected districts and was conducting rescue operations along with the administration by using state-of-the-art equipment and machinery.
Also, 17 teams of NDRF have been deployed for relief measures. The CM was apprised that continuous on-ground operations are going on to evacuate people stranded in floods, assess damage caused due to floods, and check the outbreak of disease, across all the flood-hit areas.
He directed that the breaches along the flooded rivers should be plugged and that medical teams should provide preventive care against diseases in every village. He said that along with relief works, teams should be ready to undertake water sampling, outdoor and indoor spray, water chlorination, fever survey, card tests for timely detection of malaria and dengue, distribution of sanitary napkins and mosquito nets in the coming times.
The CM said that the water supply and sanitation department should press in water tankers for providing clean and potable drinking water in the villages until the supply through water supply schemes is fully restored. Likewise, water testing teams should check water quality in all the villages to avoid any epidemic outbreak. He said that besides water, dry ration kits, sugar, rice, wheat flour, ghee, and milk powder should be provided to the people in marooned villages. The Mandi Board and PWD (B&R) have been asked to carry out a detailed survey of the extent of damage to the bridges, roads, and government buildings in flood-affected areas.
