Each Aila-affected family to get Tk 20,000

PM to visit Aila-hit areas
The government has decided to provide Tk 20,000 to each of the families hit hard by cyclone Aila in the country’s southern districts of Khulna and Satkhira, reports NewAge.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina is expected visit the worst affected areas by the end of June for the first time to see for herself the sufferings of the Aila victims and provide them the financial assistance as many in the worst-affected coastal belt continue to suffer even one year after the disaster, according to officials.
‘Prime minister may visit the Aila-hit southern part of the country anytime this month. During her visit, she will provide financial assistance for rehabilitation of the people still staying on embankments in miserable conditions,’ said a senior official.
The food and disaster management ministry held a preparatory meeting for the prime minister’s programme in the cyclone-hit southern region on Thursday with the minister, Muhammad Abdur Razzaque, in the chair.
The government, meanwhile, has allocated a fund of around Tk 100 crore for distribution among 48,000 families listed as the worst victims.
The beneficiaries would have to have bank accounts as the money would be disbursed through cheques, said officials of the food and disaster management ministry responsible for coordination of the rehabilitation and development activities in the Aila-affected areas.
Asked about the prime minister’s planned visit to the Aila-affected areas, the food minister said the schedule was not yet confirmed. But it might be anytime this month, he added.
‘Around 1.5 lakh people belonging to 48,000 families have been staying on embankments in Dacope, Koira, Ashashuni and Shyamnagar. Each family would be given Tk 20,000 for rehabilitation,’ Abdur Razzaque told New Age.
He said the government was trying its best to rehabilitate the Aila victims.
More areas in the worst-affected Dacope, Koyra, Ashashuni and Shyamnagar have submerged this year as the authorities have failed to complete repair of the embankments, heavily damaged by the cyclone in 2009, further intensifying the sufferings of the affected people.
The prime minister in March ordered deployment of army in the worst-affected areas that include Dacope, Koyra, Ashashuni and Shyamnagar Upazilas reportedly against the backdrop of slow pace in the work of embankment repair by the Water Development Board.
The people living on the embankments fear that they would not be able to get back the land lost in water. They said that more areas would come under water permanently as some narrow canals by the riverside embankments were engulfing more lands with the breaches going beyond repair.
At least 190 people were killed, scores injured, large tracts of cropland damaged and several thousand houses were totally or partially damaged when the cyclone Aila lashed the coastal belt a year ago.

Courtesy of NewAge