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This monsoon season has been disastrous for Himachal Pradesh. The relentless rain and subsequent floods coupled with landslides have destroyed public infrastructure on an unprecedented scale. The losses are estimated to be over ₹12,000 crore. Already underneath monetary stress, the state is now trying to find funds to undertake the humongous job on its fingers — rehabilitation of three,000 households whose dwellings had been washed out and rebuilding of battered roads, bridges, ingesting water and irrigation tasks and hydel energy crops. To date, the state has received solely ₹600 crore from the nationwide catastrophe fund corpus. That explains chief minister (CM) Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s determined plea to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare the Himachal floods a nationwide catastrophe, on the traces of the 2013 Kedarnath calamity, to assist the state obtain a much bigger tranche of central help. In direction of this finish, he has additionally demanded that the factors for help within the catastrophe aid handbook needs to be modified.
Whereas the Centre is but to take a name on Himachal’s case, CM Sukhu, in an interview with this newspaper on Monday, touched upon a bigger, and extra important, level: The person-made elements that accentuated a rain-induced calamity, and the teachings the state ought to be taught. Full disregard for structural engineering and load-bearing capability of soil strata whereas constructing homes on hilly terrain and development within the mattress of nullahs and rivers ensured that the price of floods can be monumental. Himachal has now banned development on 45-degree inclines and slicing of hills for personal improvement. The true take a look at, nevertheless, might be if the authorities can guarantee compliance. The problem earlier than the administration can be to adapt developmental aspirations to the particular ecology of the area.
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