14th Finance Commission visits flood affected areas

By Punjabnewswire4u

HARAAZ (SRI MUKTSAR SAHIB), SEPT 8

On the personal request of Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal, a high level delegation of the 14^th Finance Commission (FC) led by its Chairman Mr.YV Reddy today visited the flood affected areas of Sri Muktsar Sahib district to have first hand information about the massive devastation caused to the public installations, standing crops and houses, to enable the Commission for making recommendations to Government of India (GoI) for evolving a time bound action plan to check recurrence of such calamities emanating from the chronic problem of water logging in the region.

          Interacting with the local residents of Khokhar, Haraaz and Udaikaran village, the member of the 14^th Finance commission and Chairman Agriculture Committee of the Planning Commission of India (PCI) Prof. Abhijit Sen assured them that he would soon recommend to Chairman PCI to depute a high level team to assess the extensive damage caused to crops, houses and physical infra structure especially the roads and power grid stations due to recent floods in the area. He said that PCI was fully seized of the water logging problem in the Malwa belt as it had already sent a team led by its Member and expert on water resources Prof. Mihir Shah, who had submitted a detailed report to tackle this problem on permanent basis expeditiously adding Prof. Sen said that it was an established fact that the recent flooding in the region was also an outcome of water logging. Prof. Sen apprised the Chief Minister that Mihir Shah Committee would revisit the flood affected water logged areas to take stock of the entire situation in this context so that tangible steps could be taken to avert such situation in future. Expressing solidarity with the flood affected victims, Prof. Sen said that the GoI was at their beck and call in this hour of crisis.

          The Chief Minister thanked the Chairman of the Commission Mr. YV Reddy who termed the water logging crisis as an unusual phenomenon and assured him that the Commission would do its best to bail out the state government from this piquant situation within the ambit of its functioning. Mr. Badal said that over the period of time the centuries old drainage system was gradually crumbling and it was the need of hour to revamp it for which the centre government should come forward with massive financial assistance to ultimately relieve the people from the pangs of water logging since long. He urged the Commission to impress upon the GoI to send a team of experts on hydrology and drainage to address the problem of water logging efficaciously besides revamping the entire drainage system in the state accordingly.

          Realizing fully the substantial loss caused to the crops, the Chief Minister said that he personally invited the Commission to visit these areas to keep them abreast with the ground realities and said that the ill effects of the recent floods due to water logging would have future implications for at least one decade. Mr. Badal said the migration of people from villages on mass scale due to floods was another cause of concern for the state government and thus he warranted GoI’s immediate attention to help the state in eradicating the problem of water logging so that the people’s confidence could be restored. He said, “It is never late and requested the centre to act promptly to save the precious lives of people, their property and cattle from fury of floods”.          

                 Later talking to the media persons at Jhabelwali, the Chief Minister said that the Commission had been enlightened with the hardships faced by the people of area due to water logging and he hoped that it would certainly help the state to overcome the menace of water logging.

          Replying to a query Prof. Abhijit Sen said that the PCI has fully endorsed the proposal for Agriculture Diversification sent to it and promised to recommend the funding of this ambitious program to GoI for putting the traditional agriculture on a strong pedestal.

Earlier the commission accompanied by Chief Minister visited the damaged 132 KV Power Grid at village Sarai Naga and 220 KV Power Grid at Sri Muktsar Sahib.

          The Chief Minister was accompanied by Cabinet Minister Mr. Bikram Singh Majithia, his Principal Secretary Mr. SK Sandhu, Special Principal Secretary Mr. KJS Cheema besides the senior officers of civil and Police administration.