GUWAHATI, July 9 - Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called up Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal over phone from New Delhi and took stock of the prevailing flood situation in the State even as the overall death toll in the current wave of flood shot up to 24, with one more death being reported from Karimganj.
Sonowal informed the Prime Minister about the government�s effective and expeditious measures to reach out to the affected people.
He also informed that already Ministers of his cabinet have been directed to rush to affected areas to take stock of flood situation and step up relief and rescue operations ensuring proper arrangement of facilities for flood affected and relief camp inmates.
The Chief Minister also apprised that the MPs and the MLAs of the respective flood-affected areas have also been asked to remain in their constituencies and supervise rescue and relief operations.
However, the overall flood scenario did show some improvement for the second consecutive day with the number of affected districts coming down to 15 from yesterday�s 19.
As per the official flood bulletin, the flood-affected districts are Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Golaghat, Cachar, Dhemaji, Biswanath, Karimganj, Sonitpur, Majuli, Barpeta, Nagaon, Nalbari, Sivasagar, Morigaon and Chirang.
�As on today, 4,86,726 people in 1,096 villages stand affected,� the flood bulletin stated, adding that a crop area of 41239.19 hectares too remain submerged.
The Brahmaputra was still flowing above its danger level at Neamatighat, Tezpur, Dibrugarh, Goalpara and Dhubri while its tributaries Dhansiri and Jia Bharali are also maintaining identical trends, besides Siang, Dikhow and Khusiyara.
The relief operation too has been intensified with the number of relief camps (eight districts) going up from 89 to 90 housing as many as 17,744 inmates compared to yesterday�s figure of 16,705. Further, 90 relief distribution centres are in place for the flood affected people.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the telephonic conversation with Sonowal, inquired about the measures taken by the State Government and said that the Centre is taking the problem of flood and erosion in Assam very seriously. He assured that the Union Government would extend all support to State government for tackling the situation.
