Set foot in Assam with solution to flood, not without: AIUDF to PM

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, July 30: The AIUDF has appealed to the Prime Minister to set foot in the State with a solution to floods, and not without any. The party has, however, hailed the proposed visit of the Prime Minister.

The AIUDF was the first party to have demanded the Prime Minister to pay a visit to Assam when the State was reeling under floods.

In a statement issued to the press on Sunday, AIUDF president Badruddin Ajmal appealed to the Prime Minister to declare floods in Assam as a tiol problem. “Only taking stock of the suffering of the people of Assam due to floods and erosion is not enough. You need to declare the problem as a tiol one,” the AIUDF president said, and added: “Over 70 people lost their lives in the State in the recent wave of floods. The State has been ravaged by the recent deluge. There are families that have lost everything that had. Helping them is the prime responsibility and duty of the State and the Central governments. A large area of arable land in the State has been made unfit for cultivation due to deposition of silt carried by the flood. Hundreds of bighas of land have also been gobbled up by the Brahmaputra and its tributaries in the State, rendering a large number of farmers landless. The government has to rehabilitate such farmers. This is not the first devastation by floods in Assam. Every year farmers and others face such devastations. The need of declaring floods and erosion as a tiol problem is to fight the mece scientifically. However, none of the successive governments at the Centre gave importance on the issue. We want the Prime Minister’s visit to the State is not confined to stock taking of loss due to flood. The focus should be on declaring the mece as a tiol problem. We want not less than Rs 20,000 crore as a rehabilitation package”.