CHANDIGARH: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has expressed its deep shock and dismay over the loss of lives and properties in various parts of the state due to the fury of floods, saying that both the preceding BJP-SAD and now the ruling party government were responsible for the same.
In a statement issued from party headquarters in Chandigarh on Monday, Punjab chief of the party and Sangrur Member of Parliament (MP) said that the tall claims of both the previous Badal and now Captain Amarinder Singh governments’ tall claims of having put in place adequate combative measures to take on the zombie of floods wreaking havoc in various parts of the state year after year, adding that this year too people were left to endure the wrath of the rain gods. Mann lamented that they lost their hearth, homes and all means of sustenance and were subjected to languish in relief camps for which the government was squarely responsible.
Mann said that had the governments, instead of being low on rhetoric and high on substance and worked on coming up with concrete and lasting combat mechanism to fight the fury of floods, people would not have to suffer and seen naked dance of death and destruction, Mann added.
Accusing the state government of being a mute spectator to the unprecedented loss of lives and properties the people of the state had suffered due to floods, adding that the government could have initiated measures to set right the drainage, canal system to keep natural water flow in check. Mann alleged that that drainage and canal network had gone for a toss in the state as it had been hijacked by the mafia lords enjoying political patronage. He said that a number of unauthorized residential colonies have mushroomed on the riverbeds under the nose of the government and corruption-riddled PWD.
The AAP leader said that the people, especially the beleaguered farming community had to suffer huge losses as their standing crops were ravaged by the floods and due to the laidback attitude of the government, saying that there had been no special budget allocation to tame the fury of floods and no rain water harvesting mechanism in place though much had been said about it. He added that had the successive governments learnt lessons from the past, the people won’t have to suffer this time around when they were caught unawares by the floods.
Mann demanded the state government should order Girdawari immediately to access the extent of loss of properties and announce 100 per cent compensation to the victims, saying that the compensation be extended to farmers not only on crops but also on their tube wells, machinery, houses, livestock, poultry among others devastated in the floods, adding that the payment of compensation be made time bound.