Adhir writes to PM, seeks more Army men for cyclone Amphan-hit Bengal

Senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking deployment of more Army personnel to restore normalcy in cyclone Amphan-hit Kolkata and other parts of West Bengal. Claiming that the state government has "failed miserably" to cope with the disaster, the Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha said distribution of food and relief material to flood-affected areas has been woefully inadequate.

Chowdhury stated that large parts of the state have been inundated with the ingress of seawater and decomposed bodies floating around, which may cause a serious health hazard. He said Kolkata and many other parts of the state are still without electricity and critical patients are facing a severe threat to life.

Chowdhury said more Army personnel should be sent to help restore normalcy while taking the state into confidence. Following the request of the state government last week, Army personnel were deployed for restoration work in Kolkata and neighbouring districts.

Large areas of Kolkata and parts of its neighbouring districts continue to remain without power as electric poles and communication lines were blown away by cyclone 'Amphan' that hit the state on May 20. Chowdhury also accused the Mamata Banerjee government of dillydallying on the return of migrant labourers to West Bengal which is forcing them to pay exorbitant price to book trucks and buses.

In a video message, he said that while lakhs of migrant labourers are returning to their home states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, only few thousands have come on trains to West Bengal. The Lok Sabha MP from Baharampur in Mursidabad, a district that is home to lakhs of migrant workers, said the Centre has 2,600 'Shramik Special' trains ready for ferrying people in the next 10 days but there is no sense of urgency from the state government.

Chowdhury said bringing the migrant labourers by train will help the government keep a tab, monitor their health condition and put them in isolation if necessary. "While the state is sitting over the quick return of migrant labourers by train, the hapless labourers are themselves hiring trucks, buses coughing up Rs 10,000-12,000 on an average to return on their own from faraway places such as Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and elsewhere. This is causing serious economic strain on them, which could have averted had they come back by train," he said.

In a letter dated May 22, the West Bengal government asked the Railway Ministry not to send 'Shramik Special' trains to the state till May 26 in view of cyclone 'Amphan' that caused extensive damage to the infrastructure..