In an effort to keep the people of eastern Maharashtra — where there is currently renewed clamour for a separate State — in good humour, the Congress-led DF Government on Thursday announced a special Rs 1,934 crore package for rain-ravaged districts of Vidarbha and other areas of the State.
In an identical statement made in both the Houses of the Maharashtra legislature, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said that of the announced package, the State Government would spend as much as Rs 600 crore for undertaking repairs of the roads damaged in the heavy rains that continued to batter Vidarbha region, while it would undertake permanent flood-control works in various parts of the backward region.
Apart from repairing damaged roads and electricity lines and undertaking permanent flood control works in rain-hit areas, the State Government would extend financial assistance to the tune of Rs 374 crore to the affected people.
Chavan said the State Government had evolved the special package for the 11 rain-hit districts of Vidarbha, where as many as 107 people have been killed in monsoon-related incidents during the few days and other affected areas of the State where another 127 people have lost their lives during the last few days.
Apart of the loss of human lives, the heavy rains have left a trial of devastation in Vidarbha and other parts of the State, with over 1,900 cattle dead, 39,800 houses damaged — either fully or partially, 50 per cent of standing crops in 4 lakh hectare destroyed, while roads of the length of 5,677 km and 502 bridge have been rendered useless.
Without touching directly upon the ongoing clamour for a separate Vidarbha State, Chavan said that the Maharashtra Government had never encouraged regionalism at any point of time in the past nor was it ever discriminatory in its approach when it came to extending assistance to people affected by natural calamities irrespective of the region they lived.
“Being a large State, Maharashtra is vastly different from other States in the country in terms of geographical and natural diversities. No wonder that we are dealing with the heavy rain-triggered natural calamity in some areas, while we are trying to tackle drought in some other parts of the State. That’s why we considering it our responsibility to extend assistance to the rain-devastated people of Vidarbha and other areas of the State,” Chavan said.
By announcing a special package to the rain-devastated eastern Maharashtra and other area of the State, the Chief Minister sought to suggest that the DF Government was not in any which way discriminating against Vidarbha.