Flood preparedness meet: Assam requests 20,000 MT rice; UNICEF assures support

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: A flood preparedness review meeting held among UNICEF, RMC, MHIDCL, ASDMA, and other stakeholders, including DCs, resulted in several decisions being taken in view of the approaching flood season in the state.

Chief Secretary Ravi Kota was informed by the Food & Civil Supplies department that they have requested the government of India to allocate 20,000 MT of OMSS (Open Market Sale Scheme) rice to Assam, but no communication regarding this has been received as yet. So, the department urged the Chief Secretary to take up the matter with the Centre to expedite the allocation.

During the discussion, UNICEF informed the participants that they will assist the state government in the assessment of one-third of the model relief camps in every revenue circle on minimum assured services. These model relief camps will be monitored by all-women groups. They also agreed to develop a SoP and guidelines for the conduct of post-disaster needs assessments for the state government.

In the meeting, the Regional Meteorological Centre said that IMD will issue the updated forecast for the state by the end of May. IMD also stated that they have been issuing seven-day predictions and have now asked for more accurate rainfall predictions.

The district commissioners (DCs) have been delegated financial powers for approval and sanction for undertaking minor works due to disaster in the case of flood-damage-related works.

Also, in the meeting, the Brahmaputra Board informed the other stakeholders that they have nine ongoing schemes in Majuli, where 97% of the work has been completed. They have pre-positioned geobags and porcupines at the project sites to meet any eventualities in the flood season.

The PWD (Roads) department was requested to explore the provision of taking up repair and restoration works of roads under multiple financial windows and adding certain attributes in consultation with the finance department, as existing norms for retraction of damaged roads are not sufficient many a times, it was stated.

The Chief Secretary also took stock of district-level preparedness from the district commissioners through video conferencing in the meeting. The Chief Secretary suggested a civic data lab to look into the possibilities of capturing aggregated data to address disaster response along with resilience and flood-preparedness aspects.

 Also Read: Assam: Distribution of agricultural farm machineries and training session on Systematic Rice Intensification conducted in Tezpur (sentinelassam.com)

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