Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, the chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, has asked the Center for Rs 2,000 crore in temporary assistance and said that the relief manual would be amended to improve compensation for flood victims in the state.
In Himachal Pradesh, recent severe to very high rains caused landslides, flash floods, blocked roads, and destroyed infrastructure.
“I spoke to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and requested him for an interim relief of Rs 2,000 crore,” Sukhu said on Friday.
According to him, the state has already lost Rs 4,000 crore, and as more estimates come in, the amount is expected to rise.
Sukhu said that adjustments would be made to the relief manual to increase the compensation, which he had previously indicated will be granted to each afflicted household in the amount of Rs 1 lakh.
Each catastrophe victim now receives Rs 5,000 in help, according to the handbook.
Speaking to media in this location, Sukhu said that a disaster relief fund had been formed to assist those in need and that all of his government’s ministers and Congress MLAs had committed to contribute one month’s salary to aid the victims.
He stated that associations of officers from the Himachal Administrative Services and the Indian Administrative Services have also chosen to donate one day’s pay to the fund.
Sukhu said, “We will request the BJP legislators to do the same,” while also pleading with the general public to donate.
A three-part approach, including rescue, evacuation, and restoration, has been developed by the administration. The emphasis is now on infrastructure rehabilitation, according to the chief minister, after around 67,000 of the 75,000 visitors were saved, including 250 who were stuck in Chandratal in Lahaul and Spiti due to snowfall.
There are still some visitors in Tirthan Valley and Kasol. He said that they are all secure and have received food and other necessities.
The state government has given out Rs 1,100 crore in the last 15 days, of which Rs 610 crore went to the Public Works Department, Rs 218 crore to the Jal Shakti Department, and Rs 180 crore to the State Disaster Relief Fund, according to him.
Sukhu emphasized that the state administration has not yet received financial help and highlighted that the Rs 180 crore it got from the Center was the yearly support granted to the state during the monsoon. Additionally, he requested the Union government to release the Rs 315 crore that has been held back since last year.
In Himachal Pradesh, the monsoon season began on June 26. Since then, 108 people have perished and 12 remain missing. According to the State Emergency Response Centre, as many as 667 homes have suffered total destruction while 1,264 have experienced partial damage.
In the previous 24 hours, 17 fatalities were recorded, with six of them occurring in traffic accidents in the districts of Mandi and Shimla. The death toll includes those killed in traffic collisions and events due to the rain.
In the state, there are still around 860 blocked roads. According to representatives from the Transport Department, the Himachal Road Transport Corporation has stopped operating on 994 routes while 260 buses are being detained in transit.
In order to find stranded persons, police teams are increasingly concentrating on difficult-to-reach places with challenging geography and poor cell coverage.
According to interim Director-General of Police Satwant Atwal, rescue efforts are under way, and police personnel are relocating to the difficult interior regions where highways have been closed by landslides and floods.
Many visitors who are trapped in Kasol, Manikaran, and other regions have opted not to leave without their automobiles and will remain till things return to normal, she added.
She said, “The visitors indicated they preferred to take their cars and wait for the roads to reopen.
The automobiles were unable to proceed due to a landslide on the Kasol-Bhuntar Road at Dunkhara, thus the visitors had to walk to the opposite side.
Sukhu said on Thursday that the police would give them a ticket so they could remove their cars when the roads reopened, noting that some visitors were reluctant to leave without their automobiles.
Tourists’ families are still calling the police to find out where they are. In addition to names, numbers, and last whereabouts, the authorities are now looking for information on hotels, car numbers, and images to identify the visitors.
A “yellow” signal has been issued by the local meteorological office for heavy rainfall at isolated locations in the state till July 18. Some areas of the state have seen light to moderate rain.
