Life disrupted in Gulbarga, Bijapur due to floods

Bangalore, Aug 3 (UNI) At least 195 villages were affected and 5,000 people shifted to relief centres as Bhima and Krishna, rivers swollen due to heavy discharge of water from Maharashtra, wreaked havoc in Gulbarga, Bijapur, Belgaum and parts of Raichur districts of Karnataka today.

Talking to newspersons in Gulbarga, Revenue Minister Jagdish Shettar, who visited the flood-hit areas in the district, said 195 villages were either partially or fully marooned, most of them in Belgaum and Gulbarga districts. The State Government had released Rs five crore and Rs two crore to Belgaum and Gulbarga districts respectively to take up relief works.

The Minister also announced relief to farmers who had lost their standing crops.

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy would meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shortly to urge him to release Rs 300 crore for flood relief and seek the Centre's help to permanently shift about 40 villages, which face the brunt of floods on the banks of rivers Krishna and Bhima every year, Mr Shettar said.

He said boats and rafts were used wherever possible to evacuate people, while life jackets, ropes, search lights, rice, wheat, dal and kerosene were distributed in the affected places.

Officials said that in Gulbarga, the flood situation continued to be grim. The inflow into Bhima stood at 1.76 lakh cusecs, inundating large tracts of land along the river banks.

In Belgaum district, more than 15,700 acres of standing crop had been submerged in the badly affected Raibagh, Chikkodi, Athani and Gokak taluks in which 35 vilages were marooned.

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