HAILAKANDI, April 13 - With the early advent of monsoon in Barak Valley, the Hailakandi district administration has taken a slew of steps to mitigate the flood problem here.
A meeting was held by Chief Executive Officer, District Disaster Management Authority, EL Faihriem with the heads of line departments recently to draw out action plans to deal with any exigency arising out of flood situation in the district.
Hailakandi was hit by unprecedented deluge last year in which over three lakh people were hit with huge extent of damage to roads and infrastructure, including school buildings.
The CEO asked the heads of the departments concerned to learn from the past experience and to put in all efforts to mitigate the hardships of the people through timely intervention. Faihriem warned that no lapses will be tolerated and prosecution will be initiated against those under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
The CEO directed the Circle Officers to identify the highlands, school and other buildings where relief camps can be set up for the flood-affected people. The BDOs have been asked to assist the COs in identifying around 700 square metre of land in flood-prone areas for building raised platforms to provide shelter to marooned people. In the last year�s flood, thousands of marooned people were moved to safer places by NDRF and SDRF personnel.
The CEO asked the COs to keep sufficient number of country boats for relief and rescue operations.
Faihriem asked the officials of Water Resources Department to close all the breaches in the embankments and to strengthen them before the flooding takes place.
The officials of the Health department were asked to keep sufficient stock of medicine and deployment of mobile medical teams while the Public Health Engineering department was directed to keep adequate stock of water purifying tablets, build temporary toilets in relief camps and arrange drinking water for the camp inmates.
The CEO instructed the Food, Civil Supplies departments to keep adequate buffer stock of GR items, wheat bran and petroleum products to meet any exigency. Faihriem asked the head of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary to keep enough fodder for cattle and vaccines as well as green fodder and to find out suitable places for disposal of carcasses to prevent outbreak of epidemic during floods.
The Agriculture Department was asked to keep adequate stock of seedlings for distribution to affected farmers during the post flood period and to press into service VLEWS to assess the exact extent of damage to standing crops.
