Newmai News Network
Tura | July 21
With flood waters receding extremely slowly in the plain belt of West and South West Garo Hills, the Anti Corruption and Human Development Organization (ACHDO) has urged an extension to the Gratuitous Relief (GR) being provided to the victims of the current deluge.
Following incessant rains across the North East region, the plain belt of Garo Hills has seen one of the worst floods in recent memory with more than 1.65 lakh people affected. Many of those affected have joined relief camps for safety as the water, in some cases, had drowned their houses.
The district administrations of West Garo Hills and South West Garo Hills (SWGH) had declared seven and five days of GR respectively which came to end today.
The situation in the affected areas however is far from ideal with water receding at a snail’s pace. Moreover thousands of families are still stuck in flood relief camps as their homes are still under water. With most of those affected being daily wage laborers, the victims have a huge amounting of recouping to do.
“Water has started receding but it is far from normal. We expect it take at least another week or more for normalcy. There are many still in camps, who have not been able to earn wages for over a week now, and their condition is bad. Most of those affected are poor people and as such we urge the government to extend GR by at least 7 days,” said president of ACHDO, Ishraful Hoque.
The organization added that relief should continue until normalcy is brought about and should be monitored by a committee.
They added that the flood victims had lost their paddy, nurseries and cattle which should be compensated.
“Several items from flood relief materials were missing this time and this should be compensated in the next GR. We have also noticed that there was no cattle feed or shelters for the animals which was also shocking. The poor animals were wet in the rains through the entire time,” added Hoque.
