Hailakandi administration takes stock of flood and erosion preparedness in Barak Valley

A Correspondent

Hailakandi: With the early advent of monsoon in Barak Valley, the Hailakandi district administration is in a state of preparedness to tackle floods and erosion. A meeting was held by Chief Executive Officer, District Disaster Management Authority, EL Faihriem with the heads of line departments on Tuesday to draw out action plans to deal with any exigency arising out of flood situation in the district.

Hailakandi was hit by unprecedented deluge last year in which over three lakh population was hit with a huge extent of damage to roads and infrastructure, including school buildings. The CEO asked the heads of the concerned departments to learn from the past experience and to put in all efforts to mitigate the hardship of the people through timely intervention. Faihriem warned that no lapses will be tolerated and prosecution will be initiated against those under the Disaster Management Act, 2005. The CEO directed the Circle Officers to identify the highlands, school and other buildings where relief camps can be set up for the flood-affected people. The BDOs have been asked to assist the COs in identifying around 700 square metre of land in flood-prone areas for building raised platforms to provide shelter to marooned people. In last year’s flood, thousands of marooned people were moved to safer places by NDRF and SDRF personnel.

The CEO asked the COs to keep sufficient number of country boats for relief and rescue operations. Faihriem asked the officials of Water Resources Department to close all the breaches in the embankments and to strengthen them before the flooding takes place.

The officials of the Health Department were asked to keep sufficient stock of medicine and deployment of mobile medical teams while the Public Health Engineering department was directed to keep adequate stock of water purifying tablets, build temporary toilets in relief camps and arrange drinking water for the camp inmates. The CEO instructed the Food, Civil Supplies to keep adequate buffer stock of GR items, wheat bran and petroleum products to meet any exigency. Faihriem asked the head of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary to keep enough fodder for cattle and vaccines as well as green fodder and to find out suitable places for disposal of carcasses to prevent outbreak of epidemic during floods.

The Agriculture Department was asked to keep adequate stock of seedlings for distribution to affected farmers during the post flood period and to press into service VLEWS to assess the exact extent of damage to standing crops. Faihriem directed the Executive Engineer, PWD (Rural Roads) to keep the surface communication in pliable condition for transportation of relief materials and mobile medical units to the relief camps. The next review meeting will be held after the Lok Sabha elections on April 18 to assess the readiness of each and every department.

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