Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 24: Chairman of National Panthers Party (NPP) and MLA Ramnagar Harshdev Singh has strongly criticized the State Government for announcing a negligible amount for the restoration works and the rain fall and flood victims in the region.
In a press statement issued here today, Mr Singh said in the meeting held on Friday, which was attended by ministers and bureaucrats an insignificant amount of Rs 9.95 crore was announced for the damages to the residential houses, private property, standing crop, land erosion and loss of human lives. He pointed out that more than 10,000 houses have been collapsed in the incessant rains and floods besides land slides and hundreds of kanals of land has been washed away along with crop and this meager amount is just pea-nut and humiliation for the victims.
Mr Singh claimed that rehabilitation and restoration of damaged houses and private property due to act of nature was the moral responsibility of the Government, which otherwise was trying to evade and downplay.
The NPP leader further castigated the State Government for its half-hearted and biased survey of the rain hit areas and the resultant faulty and flawed statistics collected in pursuance there of . He said while the number of the collapsed houses far exceeded 10,000 mark in the State the Government had merely shown the number at 5600 in its record. Many remote and hilly areas have not yet been visited by the field functionaries involved in the survey. Total 33 human lives have been lost and crop on 1738 hectare has been lost, how Government will justify a paltry sum of Rs 9.95 crore, Mr Singh maintained.