Assam Foods: Flood loss to be re-assessed in Cachar

A CORRESPONDENT

SILCHAR: Prior to disbursement of financial aid to the flood-affected families for renovation of their houses, a team from Guwahati will re-assess the losses in Cachar.

A source informed that a team of 51 government officials would verify the assessment report prepared by the district teams. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had already stated that the disbursement of financial aid would start from August 7. PHE Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah, who has been entrusted by the Chief Minister to monitor the entire process in Cachar, will arrive in Silchar on Monday. Silchar town had experienced the worst-ever flood last month following a dyke breach at Bethukandi by some miscreants. Almost the entire town was submerged for at least two weeks. Later, Jayanta Malla Baruah was deputed at Silchar by Sarma, who himself visited the district thrice in two weeks.

Meanwhile, the initial assessment done by the district teams indicated that in the Cachar district, altogether 70,077 houses were damaged in the recent flood. Out of these 1,731 kutcha houses were completely damaged while 58,820 were partially damaged. Though 9,526 pucca houses were badly affected but none of these were completely ruined or washed away.

Katigorah was the worst affected circle with 30,525 houses being damaged. 425 houses were completely washed away in Katigorah. In Silchar town, number of affected houses was estimated at 25,571 while in Lakhipur the number was 2592, in Sonai 4664 and in Udharbond 6,725 houses were affected.

The assessment criterion had, however, raised a few questions, particularly in Silchar town. Ground floor of almost each and every house or housing complex were inundated. That caused massive loss of various household items ranging from bed to inverter, from refrigerator to car. The government should have looked into this, a few persons had argued. Two citizens of the town had already sent a legal notice to the government alleging that in spite of prior information regarding the Bethukandi dyke breach, the administration and the departments concerned had not taken any step to prevent the calamity or warn the people well in advance so that they could shift the household items to a safer place. They had claimed Rs 1 lakh as compensation.

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