CHENNAI: The State unit secretariat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Tuesday urged the State Government to arrange long-term relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction measures in flood-affected areas "without shirking its responsibility." It also asked the Government not to attempt to divert people's attention by blaming Opposition parties for the tragedy.

The party unit had said in a resolution that the MGR Nagar stampede on Sunday was caused by the Government's failure to draw proper lessons from the incident at Vyasarpadi in which seven persons were killed last November, said State CPI (M) secretary N. Varadarajan in a statement here.

The decision to distribute relief package to thousands at the same centre, inadequate deployment of police personnel to regulate the crowd, failure to monitor the relief distribution through an all-party panel and "panic created by the activists of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam through public address system that only two days were left for receiving the package" had resulted in the tragedy, the resolution claimed.

Apart from providing immediate relief to the affected people, the administration should ensure long-term measures, Mr. Varadarajan said. He urged the Government not to act with an eye on the coming Assembly elections.

The Government should take steps to see that relief reached all sections of the affected people.

The resolution appealed to the Centre to provide more assistance to the State and to treat damages caused by the floods as a national disaster.

The party called for enhancing the solatium for the next of kin of the deceased to Rs. 5 lakh, apart from providing a Government job to a member of each of these families.

Demanding crop loan waiver and the disbursement of crop insurance in affected areas, the party asked the Government to provide 1kg rice and Rs. 25 a day to farm workers, besides implementing the food-for-work programme.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail