2nd list of Amphan-affected people getting finalised

Kolkata: The list containing names of Super Cyclone Amphan victims in the second phase is getting final touches with senior officials of the state government carefully identifying the genuinely affected people.

The Mamata Banerjee government had allowed people to submit applications for the second time on August 6 and 7 if anyone had been left out of getting relief in the first phase.

At the same time, the Chief Minister had directed all concerned officials to ensure that a flawless list is prepared by identifying the genuine victims.

In the second phase, around 5.70 lakh applications were received from eight affected districts including East Midnapore, North and South 24-Parganas. The district authorities have sent the applications to the State Secretariat. According to the sources, officers of the state Disaster Management and Civil Defence department are scrutinising them.

Sources said many such applications are getting rejected as those are found not to be genuine. Even there are cases in which all 50 applications from a particular block in East Burdwan have been rejected.

After identifying the genuinely affected people, lists of the second phase containing their names will be uploaded on websites of the state government and that of respective districts as well.

The state government has so far released Rs 6,500 crore to undertake reconstruction work in the Amphan-affected districts.

It may be mentioned that some mistakes had surfaced in the list of beneficiaries in the first phase as attempts were made to help people as early as possible after the devastation caused by the Super Cyclone. Strict steps were also taken against those, both government officials and Trinamool Congress workers, who were found to be responsible for the errors in the list.

Subsequently, 40,000 applications were received following detailed queries to identify the genuinely affected people. As many as 26,000 out of them were already in the lists prepared by the District Magistrates earlier. About 6,000 applications were shortlisted as being genuine and they had received all assistance by the state government. At the same time, the same number of applications were rejected as those were made on false claims.