State to urge Niti Aayog to provide funds for building 500 cyclone shelters

KOLKATA: The state government will urge Niti Ayog to provide funds to set up 500 flood shelters in the state.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said coastal and riverine areas of Bengal was being affected every year and construction of more flood shelters had become essential.

"We will write to the Niti Ayog to provide funds for the construction of such shelters," she said.

Banerjee said that 1,200 relief camps had been set up to accommodate 2 lakh people of the affected districts.

Yaas has devastated vast areas in South and North 24-Parganas and East Midnapore. A total of 329 embankments have been damaged, out of which repairing of 305 have already started.

The Public Health Engineering department has distributed water pouches among 45 lakh people.

It has also started work to provide drinking water under 208 piped water schemes, she maintained.

Banerjee said 2.21 lakh hectare agricultural land had been affected while land measuring around 71, 560 hectares which were used for horticulture badly hit. The Chief Minister said Duare Tran would be implemented in the blocks that were being affected by Yaas, tornedo or heavy inundation.

She also informed that the affected people will have to apply individually and no bulk application will be entertained.

"The applications will have to be deposited in drop boxes which will be kept in schools and colleges and in the offices of the SDO and BDO," she said.

Banerjee added that the drop boxes would not be kept in the ward offices of Gram Panchayats and municipal offices to maintain transparency.

Banerjee has said over and again that the state government would not tolerate any partisan attitude in the distribution of relief materials or during rehabilitation of the affected people.

She asked the administration of South 24-Parganas to use boats to reach to the places off Gosaba immediately.

Vast areas of Khejuri and Nandigram were still inundated. In Digha, out of 7 km embankment, the Irrigation and Wasterways department has completed construction of 3.5 km of embankment while the construction of the remaining 3.5 km would be taken up soon.