Central team visits Cyclone Amphan hit areas of South 24 Parganas

A Central team on Saturday visited some cyclone-affected area of South 24 Parganas district and interacted with villrs, to assess extent of dams caused by cyclone Amphan.

team went around some parts of Katandighi-Raidighi area and heard from villrs about availability of relief materials and loss of agriculture and property. officials, part of seven-member team visiting different cyclone-affected parts of rth and South 24 Parganas districts since Friday, did t speak to reporters.

"Please ensure we get more tarpaulin. We had been living in very difficult situations. Scores of houses were ravd and agricultural land destroyed," a villr told team members in broken Hindi.

Central officials were accompanied by local block development officer and panchayat members. "y did t go into interiors to see real picture. ir convoy stopped on highway and y got down, went around adjacent areas briefly and went back. y did t go to a nearby place where mud embankment had been breached by water and entire area is flooded. What is objective of such a visit," said Barun Das, a local villr.

seven-member team, headed by Anuj Sharma, joint secretary (cyber and information security) in Ministry of Home Affairs, on Friday visited Patharpratima in South 24 Parganas and Sandeshkhali in rth 24 Parganas in two groups.

team arrived in Kolkata on Thursday evening on a three-day visit to West Bengal. team that had visited rth 24 Parganas on Friday faced protestors standing on both sides of roads in Minakha and Malancha blocks with placards which said y were t getting eugh relief.

teams toured several devastated vills and embankments of Patharpratima and Sandeshkhali blocks on Friday. y also visited Namkhana in South 24 Parganas and Hingalganj and Basirhat in rth 24 Parganas and spoke to locals and inquired about ir problems, district officials said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Basirhat in rth 24 Parganas district along with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on May 22. After his visit to areas ravd by extremely severe cyclone of May 20 Modi anunced an advance relief of Rs 1,000 crore, which has been released by Centre to state.

"We are taking te of every detail, we spoke to locals. Whatever we have to say we will mention in our report," a member of central team had told newsmen on Friday. Central team will meet chief secretary Rajiva Sinha and or senior officials of state government and slated to meet opposition BJP, Congress, CPI(M) leaders before leaving for Delhi, an official said.

cyclone had left 98 people dead and caused large-scale destruction to property in several districts of south Bengal. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said that state suffered losses of Rs 1 lakh crore due to cyclone.