Amarinder further ordered the Drainage Department to immediately plug the breaches, with the help of the Army if needed.The Punjab government on Monday declared the current flood situation in the affected villages of the state as a natural calamity, with Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh directing the Financial Commissioner, Revenue (FCR) to issue the necessary notification at the earliest.
A statement by the government said that the CM had asked the FCR to officially declare a natural calamity with the village as a unit, in order to facilitate the affected people to claim insurance against loss from various companies. This would also help the banks, especially the state cooperative banks, to restructure and defer the recovery of crop loans from farmers, as per RBI norms.
During a meeting to review flood preparedness in the state, the CM asked Finance Department to immediately clear the pending relief funds to the tune of around Rs 100 crore, for expeditious disbursement by the Revenue Department, through the respective DCs
Amarinder further ordered the Drainage Department to immediately plug the breaches, with the help of the Army if needed.
It was also decided at the meeting that the Chief Minister’s Secretariat as well as Chief Secretary would maintain close liaison with the office of the Army Commander, Western Command, Chandimandir, and pro-actively apprise them of the nature and quantum of Army assistance required.
The respective DCs will the formal request at their level, as and when the situation so warrants. The FCR informed the Chief Minister that there was no paucity of Disaster Response Funds. He said that all the
DCs had been allotted advance funds to the tune of Rs 20 lakh each, to carry out flood protection works.
