Kolkata: The death toll due to floods in West Bengal has climbed to 125, even as the situation continues to improve with the water level receding slowly following little or no rain over the past week.
The state government has estimated a loss of more than Rs300 billion (Dh16.9 billion), with as many as 743,000 houses completely or partially damaged and crops over an area of 1,292,372 hectares destroyed. The affected areas included 236 blocks, 55 municipal bodies, four municipal corporations and 814 gram panchayats (village councils) across 21,885 villages. And more than two million people were affected. So far 22,716 cattle heads have also been lost, said government officials.
The state government has set up 2,450 relief camps and 814 medical camps in the 12 flood-hit districts and special ‘Task Forces’ for relief and restoration work, which are being constantly monitoring by District Magistrates.
“Though the water levels have subsided, the situation continues to be grim as thousands of people continue to be homeless and are taking shelter in the relief camps. The rural economy has also taken a hit due to loss of crops worth crores,” said a senior official of the state’s Home department.
Officials said that it would take months to restore normality, especially in remote villages. “Most of the roads, including national and state highways, have been severely damaged. Areas are still out of electricity as polls have been uprooted and people continue to live in temporary shelters,” the official added.
“This year the examinations [class 10 and 12 board exams] have been proponed to February due to the assembly elections. However, classes have taken a hit as most schools have turned into a relief centre. Also many students have lost everything including their homes due to floods,” Purnendu Chakraborty, a teacher in Burdwan district, said.
The state government has refuted the claims of the opposition parties that accuse it of partiality in the distribution of relief material and has claimed that “never before relief work has been done so efficiently”.
“The state government has made an all-out effort to reach out to the victims of the floods. Never before relief work has been done so efficiently. All the relief material has been distributed through district magistrate’s office,” Minister for Public Health Engineering in the Government of West Bengal, Subrata Mukherjee, said.
The leader of the opposition Surya Kanta Mishra, along with other leaders of other Opposition parties, have demanded that the state government provide detailed accounts of the money spent for relief work.
“We have demanded that the money claimed by the state government to have been spent on flood relief be made public, district-wise and sector-wise. People have a right to know how much money has been spent and how,” Mishra said.
