Vijayan visits camps with rehab promise
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With rescue operations in Kerala nearly over and focus shifting on massive clean-up, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday visited relief camps spread across four districts and assured people of all help in rehabilitation and repair of their houses damaged in the rain fury that has claimed 231 lives since August 8.
Vijayan took a helicopter to reach camps in some of the worstaffected areas in Chengannur, Kozhencherry, Alappuzha, and Chalakudy districts.
“The government is committed to alleviate the suffering of people in relief camps. We will help them reconstruct their houses and ensure their livelihood. Different agencies are working hard to ensure better facilities at camps,” Vijayan said after visiting a camp at Christian College in Chengannur.
“The government is with you. We will do everything possible to help you get back on your feet,” he said at another camp.
The inmates, especially women, who had lost their homes and belongings in the worstfloods in the last 100 years, gathered in huge numbers, some with their children in arms, to narrate their woes to the chief minister about facilites at the camps.
Talking to reporters , Vijayan said the state would draw up a detailed rehabilitation package for repairing and constructing homes destroyed in the deluge.
The Kerala government is facing a Herculean task as more than 10 lakh people are still lodged in 6,000-odd relief camps.
Vijayan said his government will take up with banks the possibility of extending interest free loans of upto ₹1 lakh to people whose houses had been damaged in the rains and floods, he said adding over 60,000 houses and 30,000 wells have been cleaned
More than 50,000 volunteers have taken up the cleaning operations. A control room has also been set up to coordinate the cleaning operations, official sources said, adding civic bodies have been entrusted with the task of managing the work.
Meanwhile, the Congress, the CPI-M and the CPI trained its guns on the Centre asking it to remove obstacles in accepting foreign aid for the rain-ravaged state, including ₹700 crore offered by the UAE, even as government justified the stand.
CPI(M) Kerala state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said Centre should make changes in the convention to get Kerala assistance from foreign countries.
All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and former chief minister Oommen Chandy shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to modify rules to facilitate foreign funding for rebuilding the flood-ravaged state.
CPI general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy accused the Centre of “standing on false prestige” on the issue of foreign aid at times of natural disasters.
The opposition Congress-led UDF also continued its tirade against the state government over opening of shutters of dams without warning local people living downstream. Ramesh Chennithala, opposition leader, reiterated his demand for a judicial probe, while state electricity minister M M Mani said there was no lapse on the government’s part and all guidelines had been followed.
“The situation would have been different if dam management was done properly. Leave alone experts, even common people pleaded with dam authorities to release water gradually but they kept on waiting to generate maximum power,” Chennithala said.
Vijayan said, “This is not the time for dispute. The government’s focus now is to solve the problems being faced by the people and so it seeks the unity and cooperation of all.”
The state has suffered an estimated loss of ₹20,000 crore and had sought an interim assistance of ₹2,600 crore from the Centre, besides a special package of a similar amount under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.