Identify rain damage, take immediate measures: Alagiri

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president K S Alagiri on Saturday urged the State Disaster Management Department to assess the rain damages across the State and take immediate measures.

Advising the administration of delta districts to engage in relief measures in full swing, Alagiri, in a statement issued in this regard, said that while crops spread across two lakh acres were damaged in November 2021, samba crops in about 50,000 acres have been inundated in the rains during the last 10 days. The government must take steps to open more centres to procure harvested paddy and distribute crop insurance to the affected farmers, he added.

Referring to the monsoon impact felt by farmers in the Delta districts, mainly Cuddalore and Chidambaram, Alagiri said that samba plantation works have been greatly affected in Chidambaram and adjoining blocks. Owing to the discharge of over two lakh cusecs in Cauvery River and Kollidam River due to heavy downpour in the river’s catchments, paddy fields have been heavily inundated in Cuddalore, he said, pointing to similar damages reported in Chidambaram, Sirkazhi, Mayiladuthurai, Kumbakonam, Mannargudi and Tiruvarur.

Appreciating the flood mitigation and relief measures undertaken by chief minister M K Stalin-led government, the TNCC chief said that the people suffered in the past, mainly in 2015 due to paucity of water management schemes in the then AIADMK regime, which failed to learn its lessons from 2015 and take preventive measures in its 10-year reign.