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PM Modi held a review meeting at the school where
Mamata Banerjee pitched for greater central assistance to help people rebuild
their lives.
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Agencies
New Delhi: The central government
stands with West Bengal in these testing times and will provide immediate advance
assurance of Rs 1,000 crore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday as he
wrapped up a visit to the state that had been battered by cyclone Amphan this
week. This is PM Modi’s first outstation visit in nearly three months.
PM Modi was received at the airport by governor Jagdeep
Dhankhar and chief minister Mamata Banerjee - who accompanied him on the aerial
survey of some of the worst-affected parts of the state before landing near a
school in Basirhat, 50 km from Kolkata airport.
PM Modi held a review meeting at the school where Mamata
Banerjee pitched for greater central assistance to help people rebuild their
lives. Banerjee said at least 80 people had been killed in Bengal due to the
cyclone, many due to electrocution.
In a brief statement to the media after the meeting, PM Modi
said the Centre and state are working together to provide all possible help to
people.
“All aspects relating
to rehabilitation, reconstruction will be addressed. We all want West Bengal to
move ahead. The Centre will always stand with West Bengal in these testing
times,” PM Modi said.
PM Modi didn’t get into Mamata Banerjee’s demand to declare
the cyclone that had wreaked havoc in the state as a ‘national disaster’.
In government rules, there is no provision for such a
notification but political parties in states hit by disasters routinely make
this demand to underscore that the Centre should loosen the purse strings and
give more assistance than would be permissible under disaster management rules.
Mamata Banerjee has complained for a few days that the
Centre wasn’t moving enough to help Bengal. “We haven’t received any money to
fight the Covid-19 pandemic till date,” the chief minister told reporters after
cyclone Amphan left behind a trail of destruction and damage.
Help should arrive fast and not after 500 days, she told
reporters at a press conference on Thursday. It was at the same event that she
had appealed to PM Modi to visit the state to see the damage for himself.
PM Modi’s public announcement of Rs 1,000 crore advance
assurance was designed to address this complaint.
PM Modi said Rs 2 lakh would be given to the next of kin of
persons who died in the cyclone and Rs 50,000 each to persons seriously
injured.
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