Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Aug 23: The Congress demanded on Wednesday that the central government declare the destruction brought on by the rains in Himachal Pradesh a “national disaster” and give a special package worth Rs 10,000 crore for that state.
Rajeev Shukla, the Congress politician in charge of Himachal Pradesh, also urged Om Birla, the speaker of the Lok Sabha, and Jagdeep Dhankhar, the chairman of the Rajya Sabha, to permit all MPs in both Houses of Parliament to help the hill state using money from the MP Local Area Development Fund.
The state is not receiving the necessary national attention, he stated, because it has never experienced such devastation in its history, and the problem there is unprecedented.
He stated 12,000 homes have been destroyed, 330 people have passed away, and 35 are still missing.
“The state has incurred a loss of Rs 13,000 crore. Highways have been swept away. The entire Himachal — upper and lower reaches — has suffered due to heavy rainfall,” Shukla said.
He added that rains battered the hill state between July 7 and 15, again from August 10 to 14, and now again, and up to 75,000 tourists were left stranded and 17,000 cars were securely removed in 48 hours by the state government.
“We demand that the central government should declare the devastation caused in Himachal Pradesh due to heavy rains as a national calamity and provide it a special package on the lines provided to Uttarakhand”, he said.
“We are demanding a package of Rs 10,000 crore. Nothing will happen with the Rs 200 crore announced so far by the Centre,” he added.
“I urge both the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha chairman to allow the MPs to give donations to the Himachal Pradesh government out of their MP Development Fund,” he said.
He stated that the state receives many foreign visitors and that the infrastructure needs to be updated immediately to enable the state to recover its lost assets.
He urged other states to emulate the help that the governments of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Haryana have given to Himachal Pradesh.
The Congress MP noted that the scenario is exceptional because it has never occurred in the history of Himachal Pradesh and that two central teams have already visited the state to examine and assess the damage.
“We urge the prime minister and the home minister to come to the aid of the Himachal government by providing a special package to the state,” he said, adding that Chief Minister Sukhvinder Sukhu has already visited Delhi and met the duo.
