Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has expressed grief over the loss of life in the boat tragedy in Bijnor and has directed officials to undertake relief and rescue work on a war footing.
Yogi has also directed officials to ensure adequate treatment of the survivors.
On Friday, a woman died and 12 people went missing after a boat capsized in the Ganga river near Rajarampur village of Bijnor.
There were 30 people on the boat when it capsized.
“Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has expressed grief over the loss of life in the boat tragedy. He has directed the District Magistrate to make available a financial assistance of Rs 4 lakh to the family of the deceased within 24 hours,” an official release said.
While reviewing works relating to flood control on Saturday, Yogi said that public interest and local needs be kept in mind when formulating any flood-control project.
The Chief Minister also directed dredging of rivers in UP and stressed that there should be an effective mechanism for monitoring flood control and relief works.
“laxity of any kind in flood control and relief will not be tolerated,” the Chief Minister warned.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Bijnor sought an Army helicopter to trace the people missing after the boat capsized in the Ganga on Friday.
On their request, an Army helicopter conducted a recce on Saturday afternoon to trace the missing people but to no avail.
Additional superintendent of police (City) in Bijnor, Dinesh Singh, said that the people on the boat were headed for their fields on the other side of the river when it overturned.
Five boats of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and two of Provincial Armed Constabulary were deployed for rescue operations.
Sources said that the body of one more woman was fished out of the Ganga river on Saturday morning, taking the toll to two, while search was on for 11 other missing women.
The local police claimed that some of the missing women were identified as Kusum, Neeta, Siya, Saraswati, Sunita, Sarvesh, Kavita and Rizwana.