Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday asked senior administrative officials to provide cash grant as part of relief to the flood-affected families as soon as possible, and hoped that it will be distributed before Bakr-Id festival, which falls on September 2.
Meanwhile, the death toll in the continuing floods shot up to 514 after 32 bodies were recovered by rescue and relief teams in the past 24 hours. "I will be happy if flood-affected families are provided cash grants before Bakri-Id. You all should make all possible efforts for this. Bank accounts should be opened for those who do not possess one, so that the money could be transferred to them through real time gross settlement (RTGS)," Nitish told the officials.
The chief minister's directions came at a meeting held at 1 Aney Marg in the state capital to review flood relief, law and order and prohibition.
Chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, development commissioner Shishir Sinha, director-general of police P.K. Thakur and principal secretaries of various departments were present at the meeting. All divisional commissioners, IGs, district magistrates and SPs also joined in through video-conferencing.
Reiterating that the floods affecting 21 districts this time have been unprecedented, Nitish said he has discussed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that roads should have proper water drainage facilities built along them. He added that he discussed floods with Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, though he did not elaborate on it.
"The 'panchayat sarkar' buildings which have been constructed should have been such facilities that they could be used to run 'community relief centres' during the time of disasters. Such provisions should be made in those buildings, which are yet to be constructed," Nitish added.
The chief minister asked all officials to be always alert because Bihar is a disaster-prone state and nobody knows when a disaster would strike. He also urged them to work with a practical approach towards relief and disaster mitigation.
Nitish also pointed out that a lightning prediction and alert system would be used in Bihar on the lines of Andhra Pradesh. It will help predict a lightning strike in any particular area around 30 minutes ago and people could be alerted on their mobile phones.
Around 1.72 crore people have been affected in the floods, of which 8.55 lakh were evacuated to safer places. Altogether 8,394 villages spread across 187 blocks in 21 districts have been hit by the floods. Presently, 1.9 lakh people are having food at 794 community kitchens operating in the affected areas.
The high death toll has made the floods the worst ever since the Kosi disaster of 2008 in which 628 people had perished. The toll was 231 in the floods last year.
Disaster management officials said the toll this time is expected to rise further as rescue and relief teams of the state and central agencies are still searching for missing people and bodies.
