Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Aug 02, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Aug 02, 2005 |
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Industry & Economy
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Natural Calamities Maharashtra Govt to set up panel to examine cause of floods Our Bureau
Mumbai , Aug. 1 THE Government of Maharashtra plans to set up a technical committee to investigate the reasons behind the floods in Mumbai city, the Chief Minster, Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, told presspersons at the Secretariat on Monday. He was, however, non-committal about fixing responsibility for the lack of prior warning and the lassitude in giving effective help to marooned citizens here and in nearby regions. On being asked pointed questions about the failure of the Government in responding to the crisis, Mr Deshmukh merely said, "This is a technical matter and I would not like to comment on it now. We need to take a re-look at the full planning process." He drew attention to the fact that on July 26 Mumbai had received 945 mm of rainfall, which was the highest in a single day in almost 100 years. The total deaths since then have risen to 924, of which 425 are from Mumbai. Due to the flood situation 60,000 people have been evacuated to safer places in the State, Mr Deshmukh said. According to the Chief Minister, Rs 5,000 in cash was being given as help to those families that have lost all their belongings. Twenty kg of grain was being distributed freely to all the affected people with priority for slums dwellers. A separate account has been opened in the Chief Minster's Relief Fund where people can donate money. In view of the crisis, schools and colleges will remain closed on Tuesday, he said. Mr Deshmukh added that he had spoken to the Chief Minster of Karnataka requesting him to open the doors of Almatti dam so as to absorb the water release from Koyna dam. Otherwise the backlash from Koyna and Krishna rivers would inundate more areas in Maharashtra. Karnataka had opened the Almatti dam on Sunday and released 3,00,000 cusecs of water. Mr Deshmukh informed that Reliance Energy has been offered technical help from the State electricity undertaking and Tata Power to restart its power supply to suburban Mumbai. Reliance Energy had been facing problems in restoring power supply, he said. Red alert has also been sounded in Patan, Karad and Kolhapur. Three columns of the Army from Pune have been deployed in Satara and Kolhapur.
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