NEWS

Central team to visit flood-hit Bihar

By Anand Mohan Sahay in Patna
September 04, 2007 12:47 IST

A nine-member central team is visiting Bihar on Tuesday to assess the damage caused to infrastructure and public and private properties by the floods.

Two days ago, the state government had asked for a central assistance of Rs 8,000 crore.

With over 21 million people in 20 of its 38 districts, the Bihar government requested Finance Minister P Chidambaram during his day long visit on Sunday for assistance.

"The central team will arrived here on Tuesday evening and they will hold talks with the top officials of the state administration before touring different parts of the state, which have been affected by the heavy rain and consequent floods, to assess the damage to standing crop, infrastructures, and public and private properties," Manoj Srivastava, commissioner of the state disaster management department said.

Srivastava said the central team will camp for two days to visit different floods affected areas before returning to Delhi on September 7.

The central team will submit its report to the centre after completion of their survey. On the basis of this report the centre will decide the central assistance to floods ravaged Bihar.

Official sources in the state government said the total deaths in the current floods crossed the 610 mark on Tuesday including 65 drowned.

Over 214.01 million people in nearly 10,000 villages under 225 blocks spread in 20 districts were affected by floods.

The floods destroyed standing crops worth Rs 80537.28  crore in 17.13 lakh hectares and damaged 5,21,441 houses.

The floods also caused a massive damage to the roads and all road construction work in the state was hit. "The 90-km stretch of the East-West Corridor was also affected by the floods," officials said.

Anand Mohan Sahay in Patna

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