The Newz Radar
MANDI: Former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has said that it was wrong to draw a comparison between the expenditure incurred on the G20 summit and the demand for a special relief package in view of the massive devastation caused by the recent torrential rain in Himachal.Jai Ram, a senior BJP leader and the Leader of Opposition in the Himachal Vidhan Sabha, said hosting the G20 summit was a major honour for the country.
The reaction came in response to a query by TNR over shouldn’t Himachal have got a relief package when such a huge amount was spent on the summit. He insisted that the Centre was providing enough help to Himachal in different spheres.Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, meanwhile, has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare the rain disaster in the state as a national calamity and sought a special relief package.
Sukhu met the Prime Minister at the dinner hosted by President Droupadi Murmu on the occasion of the G-20 Summit in New Delhi on Saturday and apprised him of the severe damage caused to infrastructure and the loss of lives in the state due to heavy rain in July and August.He informed the Prime Minister that over 400 people had lost their lives due to the calamity and over 13,000 houses had been damaged, leaving thousands of families homeless. “As a result of the disaster, the state has suffered a cumulative loss of over Rs 12,000 crore,” he told Modi.
Sukhu said that the state needed substantial assistance from the Union Government to rebuild infrastructure and chart a path towards recovery. He urged the Prime Minister to release a special relief package for Himachal Pradesh, as was provided to Gujarat after the Bhuj earthquake and to Uttarakhand after the Kedarnath tragedy.
