Introduction
Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Tamil Nadu government had failed to take adequate preventive measures to tackle the floods in Chennai and southern Tamil Nadu.
Further said, “No lessons have been learned from the 2015 floods,” speaking about the Centre’s response to the TN floods at a press conference organized in New Delhi.
Nirmala Sitharaman over Tamil Nadu Government
Nirmala Sitharaman criticized the Tamil Nadu government for failing to take preventive measures against the floods in Chennai and southern Tamil Nadu, stating that no lessons were learned from the 2015 floods. She mentioned that if the allocated funds for Chennai basin development were properly spent, the impact of the floods could have been mitigated.
As for southern districts, the state government failed to act on the weather forecast promptly and take sufficient precautionary measures.
She said Chief Minister M K Stalin, chose to stay in New Delhi for the meeting of the INDIA alliance when four southern districts in the state were flooded. “He visited the flood-affected districts only three days later.
She said I met Home Minister Amit Shah and sought speedy rescue and relief measures for the four districts and He issued necessary orders the same day.
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The nine helicopters that were deployed did multiple sorties rescuing people and giving them relief materials
“Until December 21 evening, as many as 42,290 people were rescued by the NDRF, the navy, the air force, and the coast guard along with the state police and other agencies,” she said. An inter-ministerial central team was also promptly deployed to south Tamil Nadu on December 19 itself, she said.
To a query on additional funds sought by the state government. Nirmala Sitharaman said the Union home ministry would take a call on allocating more funds after the inter-ministerial central team, which is currently camping in southern, submits its report. She said the TN floods could not be declared a national disaster’ as sought by Stalin because there was no such system of declaring something so.
On the charge that the forecast by the regional meteorologic center was not accurate, Union Minister Nirmala Sitaraman said it was a state-of-the-art center with three Doppler radars An alert for heavy to very heavy rain was given on December 12 forecasting 64mm of rain and 124mm in 24 hours for December 16. The warning was upgraded on December 15 to orange alert.