Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh BJP on Thursday
appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to declare recent
floods, which caused widespread destruction in the state, as a
"national calamity".
"We want you (PM) to declare AP floods as a national
calamity and to release a fund of Rs 10,000 crore for rescue
and rehabilitation work," state BJP president Bandaru
Dattatraya said in a letter to the prime minister.
"While this is no time to involve in blame game, it is
important and imperative to constitute a high-level committee
of experts drawn from other states to go into various aspects,
including finding whether there were any lapses, and to
prevent such happenings in future," the BJP leader said.
He also called for creating a Central Water Monitoring
system to prevent arbitrary release of water by the individual
states, especially during floods and heavy rains, and sought
for constituting a Central Coordination Committee under the
Central Water Commission for effective management of rivers.
"BJP feels that 'proportionate water release' should be
followed while releasing water," he said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, October 08, 2009, 22:37