Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced a package of Rs 2,000 crore for flood relief operations in Northeastern States, where lakhs of people have been affected by the seasonal floods in past couple of months this year and over 100 people were killed in flood-hit States.
The Prime Minister also announced Rs 250 crore for Assam to deal with the damage caused by the devastating floods that have submerged 29 districts of the state, affecting over 25 lakh people and led to killing of 76 people.
Apart from this the Prime Minister also announced setting up a high-powered group with a corpus of Rs 100 crore to study the course of the River Brahmaputra to find a lasting solution to the recurrent annual problem.
The Prime Minister arrived in lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International (lGBI) airport on Tuesday and met Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, his Cabinet colleagues and members of the alliance partners of the BJP-led Government in Assam at the Assam Administrative Staff College. later, the Prime Minister also held separate meetings with the Chief Ministers of Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh at the venue.
“The Prime Minister has announced a package of Rs 2,000 crore for the N-E States. We are yet to get the break ups for States but we believe Rs 1,200 crore of this amount is for repairing the infrastructure damage in Assam,” said Assam Water Resource Minister Keshav Mahanta while addressing the reporters after the departure of the Prime Minister.
“Apart from this he has announced a special package of Rs 250 crore for Assam, which will be released immediately to deal with relief and rehabilitation works,” he said adding that the Prime Minister had earlier released another amount of Rs 350 crore to Assam Government to deal with the flood situation here.
He said the Prime Minister has also announced institution of an high-powered group, including academicians, technocrats and scientists to study the course of the River Brahmaputra, which will lead to a permanent solution to the recurrent flood problem in Assam.
“A corpus of Rs 100 crore will be created for this project so that the experts can study the course of the mighty river and come up with remedial measures to stop the annual flood,” he said.
The Prime Minister had earlier also announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh to the next kin of those killed by the devastating floods in Assam this year and Rs 50,000 to those injured.