Say first rehabilitate flood-affected businessmen
The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) today ‘rejected’ the Rs 80,000 crore package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. The Valley businessmen said the Centre should first rehabilitate flood-hit businessmen and that five-year plans would not provide immediate relief to them.
“We have rejected the package…. Instead of an immediate relief package, the Prime Minister has made allocation of funds to the tune of Rs 80,000 crore to be spent over a period of five years. The Rs 44,000 crore financial package for flood victims submitted by the state is still awaiting approval which has disappointed the people of the state,” KCCI president Mushtaq Ahmad Wani said while addressing a press conference here.
He regretted the ‘failure’ of the state government in “getting the rehabilitation package” and it was “baffling why the Centre has chosen to keep its eyes shut even after the eye-opening report by the International Report in Annual Disaster Statistical Review”. Wani said the report had listed September floods of last year as the “costliest natural disaster in the world in 2014” and put the loss at 1,04,000 crore. “But the Centre ignored the requirement of funds essential for relief and rehabilitation….Immediately after the deluge in 2014, the KCCI put in all efforts to make spot assessment of losses which worked out to of the order of Rs 1,00,000 crore plus that was submitted to the state and Centre for consideration,” he added.
Wani said money earmarked for flood relief and reconstruction, including flood management was mere Rs 7,854 crore as against the requirement of Rs 37,000 crore demanded by the state exclusively of losses suffered.
KCCI secretary general Faiz Bakshi said: “The Centre failed to provide us immediate relief after the floods and after a wait of more than a year, we got a five-year plan.”
