Jaya urges PM to declare flood national calamity
11 Dec 2015 5:02 AM IST
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare the unprecedented flood in the state a national calamity and proposed measures, including a moratorium on home and vehicle loans, to enable affected families rebuild lives.
“I request you to immediately declare this unprecedented, catastrophic and cataclysmic event a national calamity,” she said in a letter to Modi.
For flood-hit households many of whom are in the low and middle income groups, she proposed a special set of measures like soft loans, speeding up insurance claims disbursal and moratorium by banks on EMIs. Referring to the destruction caused by four rounds of floods in most districts, she said there has been extensive damage to infrastructure and private property of thousands of families. Many households have lost valuables like personal effects and domestic durable assets, she said and added that “it cannot be adequately compensated through the existing structure of relief payments”.
“The insurance companies may be directed to take up the survey and settlement of the claims on a campaign mode, and with a liberal application of norms so that such households could receive insurance payments early,” she said.
“I suggest that the banks may be directed to provide a limited moratorium on repayment, as well as a rescheduling of the loans, which would lower the Equated Monthly Instalment payments and offer a measure of relief,” the CM said.
Many affected families also lost their personal vehicles and almost all their durable domestic assets, including furniture, refrigerators, television sets, washing machines and kitchen equipment, she said.
“I suggest that, as a special case, flood-affected families may be liberally extended soft loans by banks for purchase of vehicles, educational loans to continue to fund the education of children and personal loans of an amount upto Rs five lakh to finance essential domestic durable assets,” she said.
The government would provide special certification to all such families, based on which banks could sanction loans as per their norms, she said.
The CM stressed that only with such a package of assistance would many of these families be in a position to restart their lives.
Jayalalithaa also requested that excise duty exemption be provided till March 31 2016 for white goods (domestic electric appliances) and kitchen equipment to be sold in the flood affected districts.
Given the “extraordinarily heavy devastation caused by the floods,” she said the liberal measures suggested by her for insurance companies and banks would enable the flood affected families rebuild their lives.
Requesting immediate action, she said, “I would be grateful if you could direct the Ministry of Finance to immediately formulate a liberal scheme as suggested and issue appropriate orders and guidelines.”
Showers in city after 2 days, air services resume in full swing
After two relatively rain-free days, Chennai and its suburbs on Wednesday received showers in the morning but normal life was not affected even as air services began operating in full swing.
Different parts of Chennai saw light showers in the morning, while the the weather office had forecast cloudy skies with occasional spells of rain in the city.
The focus in the city and its neighbourhoods continued on rehabilitation of affected citizens even as more volunteers, including actors like R Parthipan, Arya and Karthi, and NGOs joined the efforts, mainly taking care of supply of food and water.
The state government said a dedicated cell at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here was receiving aid meant for flood victims. Those willing to help people could deposit the aid there and these would be distributed by officials of the Corporation of Chennai, who have already undertaken the work, it said.
Meanwhile, air services at the airport here resumed in full swing with domestic and international flights being operated as per schedule, officials said. However, inclement weather for a while forced diversion of two flights, both private carriers, from Mumbai and Kolkata and a cargo service, to Bengaluru, they added.
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