SHILLONG, MAR 11: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Tuesday told the Assembly that steps are being taken to mitigate the entire impact of floods due to heavy rains in the state.
Sangma in his reply said, “Multiple steps are being taken. Wherever we are able to have interventions whether it is through the water resources department or the soil and conservation department or the forest department, different measures have been taken at different areas of course, these are not hundred percent foolproof as weather these days are quite unpredictable.”
“But large number of efforts are being made and more importantly we are working on weather forecasting mechanism combined with the new technologies satellite imagery and other aspects from the new technologies that are available based on which we are also trying to ensure that we are able to predict in advance any kind of major flash flood or cloud burst that possibly could be there with a caveat that we may not hundred percent be able to do that but with advancing technologies, we are in a position to now at least have some kind of weather warnings in most of the situations that we faced. So yes, steps are being taken to mitigate the entire impact of the floods and the heavy rains that we received in the state of Meghalaya,” he added.
Further, the chief minister informed that the Disaster Response Fund was Rs 322 crore and Disaster Mitigation Fund was Rs 81 crore in the last five years.
“During last year alone, the government had spent Rs 71 crore of Rs 322 crore DRF for the disaster affected areas.”