Poojari seeks Central Aid for flood victims in Karnataka

New Delhi, June 29 (UNI) Senior Rajya Sabha MP B Janardhana Poojari today urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to extend rehabilitation assistance to flood victims in Karnataka where at least 45 people had died and millions rendered homeless in the last four days.

Mr Poojari, in his letter to Dr Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, said torrential rains had wreaked havoc in coastal, southern and northern Karnataka regions. The intensity of winds was so strong that a merchant vessel, containing two tons of oil cargo from South Africa, sank off the coast of Mangalore, killing two of its crew members.

There was large-scale sea erosion and lakhs of trees uprooted as the downpour submerged the cultivated fields. Houses collapsed and property worth several crores were lost in Udupi, Mangalore, Kodagu, Belgaum, Bagalkot, Bijapur, Gulbarga, Raichur, Bellary and Gadag.

He said the state had suffered enormously and the people deserved immediate assistance in the form of foodgrains and relief and rehabilitation measures. "This kind of gesture at this juncture of calamity will be appreciated by the people particularly the victims of torrential rains,'' he said.

UNI