Central team visits U’khand to assess damage caused by natural disasters

An inter-ministerial central team arrived in Uttarakhand on Monday to assess the damages caused by a series of natural disasters, and collect information from the government and people in cloud burst hit areas.

The team will visit six districts, including Uttarkashi and Chamoli, that witnessed maximum damages during the disaster.

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On its arrival, the disaster damage assessment team met Secretary Disaster Management and Rehabilitation Vinod Kumar Suman for a meeting at the State Emergency Operations Center(SEOC) Dehradun. Suman gave a presentation to the team about the state government’s own assessment of the damage.

According to the officials in the state disaster management department the visiting team will assess damages in six districts Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Rudraprayag, Nainital, Pauri and Bageshwar over the next two days. These districts mainly Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Bageshwar witnessed maximum losses in the record series of landslides and flash floods triggered by the cloudbursts at several places in the month of August.

The team consisting of officials from different departments will be led by R Prasanna, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs. Its six other members are Under Secretary Sher Bahadur, Superintending Engineer Sudhir Kumar, Deputy Director Vikas Sachan, Chief Engineer Pankaj Singh and Director Dr Virendra Singh. They will visit the disaster hit areas, take stock of the current situation and have interactions with the victims.

After their on-site assessment, the central team will reach out to the respective district administration to seek their side of the tale. Every district administration will present details about damages in their respective areas.

On its return to Dehradun the central government assessment teams members call upon and hold meetings with the Disaster Management and Rehabilitation Department Secretary and other officials in the state government.

A meeting will be held in Dehradun after the central team returns. Vinod Kumar Suman, Secretary of Disaster Management and Rehabilitation, said that the central team will be briefed on Monday about the disaster, and then they will visit the districts to assess the situation.

Once the team returns it has another briefing and discussion with the government in Dehradun. We hope centres will release adequate funds to meet the losses incurred to the people of. Released funds by the centre owing to this assessment will help in the development of the disaster affected areas and help the situation come to normal.