Bihar floods: Manmohan, Sonia undertake aerial survey

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Thursday undertook an aerial survey of the four most affected districts by floods in Bihar where the swollen Kosi river continued to wreak havoc.

Singh and Gandhi arrived at the Purnia airbase by a special IAF plane from New Delhi and took off in an IAF chopper to undertake the aerial survey in Supaul, Saharsa, Araria and Madhepura districts, official sources said.

They were accompanied by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, Union Minister of State for Water Resource Jaiprakash Narain Yadav and BJP Lok Sabha members from Purnia and Araria -- Uday Singh and Sukhdeo Paswan -- respectively.

Earlier, Kumar received Singh and Gandhi at the Purnia airbase and briefed them about the flood situation.

Altogether 55 persons have so far lost their lives in the current spell of floods in the state.

Personnel of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Special Auxiliary Police (SAP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), state police and the Army were engaged in the flood-hit areas to provide succour to the victims, the sources said.

Over 25 lakh people in 15 districts have been hit by the impact of one of the worst floods in recent memory with victims from these four districts making up 19.78 lakh.

A total of 396 boats engaged in relief and rescue work in the four districts have so far rescued 65,539 marooned people to safer places, they said, adding the number of people rescued from all the 15 districts was over 1.2 lakh.

Chief Minister Kumar, who called on Prime Minister Singh in New Delhi on Wednesday, had demanded an initial allocation of Rs 1,000 crore from the Centre in view of the unprecedented devastation caused by the turbulent Kosi river, which has charted a new course after breaching its embankment.

Kumar had stressed the need for an aggressive pursuit of diplomatic initiatives with Nepal for the construction of high dams and massive re-aforestation in the upper catchment area of the rivers, which would also imply the strengthening of embankments as part of long-term initiatives.

"More than 20 lakh people and their houses, including a number of townships, 242 panchayats and 671 villages which lie along the new course of the river have been inundated," he said, adding the state would immediately require one lakh metric tonne of rice for relief.

source :
http://www.hindu.com/