Vaghela terms Surat flood as man-made disaster, slams Modi govt

Ahmedabad, Aug 14 (UNI) Terming the floods in Surat as a ''man-made'' disaster, Union Textiles Minister Shankersinh Vaghela today blamed the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat for triggering it by releasing huge quantity of water from the Ukai dam without giving prior warning to the people.

''The government had earlier said it would not release water before August 15, but did so a week before. Without prior instructions, they ordered release of 10 lakh cusecs water from Ukai dam. The people were not given sufficient time to move out and in fact were taken unawares,'' he told reporters here.

He also accused the Chief Minister of giving a political colour to the aid package of Rs 500 crore announced by the Centre. ''Last year too, the Central government had sanctioned Rs 500 crore to Gujarat for flood relief. But out of this, only Rs 378 crore were spent and the rest is lying unspent. Instead of devoting time to flood relief, the Government is playing politics even with this tragic situation,'' he said.

He scoffed at Mr Modi's Vibrant Gujarat and Navratri celebrations and said the state Government should concentrate more in providing medical services to Surat, as threat of epidemic loomed large over it.

He said it was a matter of shame that the Government had invited tenders to the tune of Rs 300 crore for the Sabarmati river-front development project to develop VIP lounge, toilets etc, while the relief efforts in the diamond city were pretty slack.

He said as people in large numbers have left Surat fearing epidemic breakout, there is a paucity of labour to take part in the relief work. He said the Congress was sending a 2000-member group to join the cleaning operations.

''It was sad that while several top Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Ahmed Patel visited the worst-hit city for first-hand knowldege of the situation, none of the national BJP leaders turned up during the time of need,'' he added.

On the losses to the industry, he said estimates are being drawn up and it will take time to resume normalcy as about two lakh labourers have left Surat fearing epidemic.

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