At a meeting of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee, the party has decided to rebuild houses damaged by the floods in Sivasagar, Jorhat and Charaideo, officials said on Sunday.
The meeting was attended by general secretaries and district presidents and was held in the presence of AICC general secretary and Assam in-charge Bhupesh Baghel. Party functionaries have been asked to identify villages where houses need to be rebuilt and coordinate the work on priority.
As many as 108 people have died in the Assam floods this year, while houses and other infrastructure, including cattle sheds, fisheries and health centres, have been damaged.
Families in the flood-hit areas of Upper Assam received Rs 15,000 in initial relief, but the amount is dwarfed by the cost of rebuilding.
In Sivasagar, 2,000 bricks alone cost around Rs 22,000 when delivered to affected areas such as Nazira. Cement costs around Rs 490 per bag, while a truckload of sand costs about Rs 4,500.
The figures underline the gap between the initial relief reaching flood-hit families and the actual cost of rebuilding a damaged home. The Rs 15,000 assistance is intended as immediate support after the floods, but families are having to stretch it across damaged homes, household essentials and lost livelihoods.
At the national level, the Centre has approved around Rs 5,000 crore in housing assistance under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin for flood-affected families in Assam. This is a broader government allocation for housing support and should not be confused with the Rs 15,000 in initial relief received by individual families.
Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal has also said that the Centre will provide all possible assistance to the state to rehabilitate people affected by the floods in the three worst-hit districts.
Flood waters have receded across much of Upper Assam. However, for thousands of families, recovery is only beginning, and the cost of rebuilding a damaged home is already proving far higher than the initial relief amount.
Exceptionally heavy rain across parts of neighbouring Nagaland and Assam from mid-July triggered this year’s devastating floods, which minister Pijush Hazarika described as the state’s worst in six decades