Congress demands Rs 20,000 crore disaster relief package for U’khand from PM Modi

PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE | Dehradun

The Congress party has made a demand to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the Union government should provide a special relief package of Rs 20,000 crore to Uttarakhand. The party made the demand in a memorandum directed to the PM and submitted to the district administration of Dehradun ahead of the PM’s Dehradun visit on Thursday.

 In the memorandum, the Pradesh Congress Committee president Karan Mahara said that the recent spell of heavy rains have triggered natural disasters in different parts of the State. He said that large scale damage to life and property has occurred in the State due to the disaster. Mahara said that the Centre should provide the relief package to revive the tourism, pilgrimage, hotel and small industries and declare the recent disaster as the national disaster.

In his memorandum, Mahara made special mention of the impact of the disaster in Dharali (Uttarkashi) and Tharali ( Chamoli). He said that the Uttarakhand government has asked a sum of only Rs 5,700 crore from the union government which is grossly inadequate considering the scale of the damage caused in the disaster.

He said that every disaster affected family should be provided with an immediate relief of Rs 10 lakh each from the Union and the State governments.  Mahara said that all the disaster affected people should be shifted to safer places. 

Mahara said that apart from declaring a special package the Union and State governments should send teams of scientists, geologists and specialists to the disaster affected areas. These teams can provide a concrete plan to deal with such disasters in the future, he opined.