CALCUTTA, SEPTEMBER 26: In the midst of knee-deep water all around, Union Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee's house was an island today. With the Tolly's Nullah or Adiganga overflowing because of high tide, the entire Kalighat area where she stays was inundated. ``Tell everybody that whoever in the slums wants to take shelter in my house is welcome,'' Mamata told party members, minutes after she arrived from Delhi .But the Union minister may have to arrange for a couple of more houses for the people of her neighbourhood if the high tide in the Hooghly river on three successive days - Tuesday to Thursday - hits the city, as apprehended by the met office. The first tide is to start tonight and the most dreaded one is to occur on Thursday when it could reach a height of 6.4 metres and flood Calcutta.Already some areas at Chitpur and Baghbazaar in the north and Kalighat and Tollygunge in the south, which are close to the banks of the Hooghly, have been inundated with ankle-deep water. ``We have told the police to alert the people in the areas and evacuate those who live in flood-prone areas,'' Deputy Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya told reporters here today.Calcuttans fear that the if the high tide hits the city, the metropolis can witness a repeat of 1978 when large parts of Calcutta were flooded, affecting lakhs of people and damaging property worth crores.Even as Calcutta prays and gears up for the deluge, the flood situation in the state remains grim with the state government demanding that the Centre declare it a national calamity. At a Press conference jointly addressed by Bhattacharya and finance minister Ashim Dasgupta, Dasgupta said the government had demanded Rs 962 crore from the Centre for flood relief. ``The 11th Finance Commission has recommended a fund for national calamity management and we demand that money from that fund be released to tackle the floods,'' Dasgupta said.The calamity which has struck West Bengal on the eve of Durga Puja has gripped two more districts - Malda and North 24 Parganas - taking the number of districts affected to nine. While the government has put the toll at 490 and the number of missing at 201, in all probability the number of dead has crossed 1000, according to unofficial sources.``We have made a rough estimate of the damage caused by the floods and in terms of rupees it is worth Rs 3,089 crore,'' Dasgupta said. According to him, the government has already spent Rs 72 crore on relief and rescue. He added that apart from 32 motor boats already deployed for rescue operations, the government has requisitioned 12 more boats and six high-speed boats for rescue.Congress president Sonia Gandhi is visiting the state on September 28 and will make an aerial survey of the flood-ravaged areas, according to PCC President Pranab Mukherjee. ``She had asked for a helicopter and we will arrange for that,'' Bhattacharya said. Meanwhile an eight-member delegation of the Congress met Chief Minister Jyoti Basu today and discussed the situation with him.Mamata will undertake a tour of the flood-hit areas tomorrow, according to party sources. Regarding the demand of the state government for declaring the flood as a national calamity, she said it was not important at this stage to define the calamity; the most important thing was to reach the affected people with relief as fast as possible.However, the Left Front today accused the Centre of an indifferent attitude towards the flood situation here. ``The Centre is not taking steps to remove silt from river-beds and the met office has also not given us enough warning on the rain that has wrought this havoc,'' Left Front Chairman ailen Dasgupta told reporters at a Press conference here today.Various organisations in Calcutta and in other parts of the state have started collecting funds for flood relie. Yesterday India's cricket captain Saurav Ganguly, along with Bollywood hero Sharad Kapoor, undertook a padyatra to collect funds for flood relief.
