Flood situation remains unchanged; Rajnath Singh to visit Assam on Saturday

Official sources here said the union home minister will arrive in Guwahati on Saturday morning and undertake an aerial survey of the state’s flood situation in Nagaon and Morigaon districts in central Assam. Accompanied by state Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, he will also fly over the Kaziranga National Park, which has been 90 per cent submerged for the past four days.

Over 19 lakh people in 23 districts have been affected by the current wave of floods, of whom about 2.25 lakh have taken shelter in nearly 600 relief camps set up by the authorities. The death toll has touched 25.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Sonowal visited Dhubri and Chirang districts on Friday and made a ground assessment of the flood situation in those two districts. He also visited some relief camps, spoke to the inmates, and later went to some spots where the Brahmaputra and Aie rivers had breached embankments leading to massive inundation of a number of villages in the two districts. Sonowal had on earlier visited Majuli, Golaghat and Lakhimpur districts.

Asking officials to provide all possible help to the flood-affected people, Sonowal said there was no dearth of funds, and that adequate amounts of money have been already released to the affected districts. He also asked the officials to remain prepared with men and machinery and keep round-the-clock vigil on embankments and other vulnerable areas that are likely to spur more damages.

The Assam government meanwhile placed under suspension two engineers and another employee of the state water resource department posted in Majuli island for dereliction of duty during the time of floods. An executive engineer and an assistant executive engineer of the department were issued show cause notice. An official press release said the two engineers did not visit the Brahmaputra embankment at Haldibari in Majuli despite repeated information sent by local people when the river had started causing damage to it.