GUWAHATI, AUG 20 (PTI): Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide a Rs 10,000 crore special package to the state to compensate for economic losses suffered by people and damage to rural infrastructure during the recent floods.
The special package is needed to cover losses suffered by people and damage to roads, shops, schools and drinking water infrastructure, Gogoi said in a post on X.
“I request PM Modi to give a Rs 10,000 crore special package for Assam to cover the economic loss of the people and the damage to rural infrastructure, including roads, shops, schools, and drinking water,” the Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.
He also alleged that while Assam battled one of its worst floods in decades, the PM CARES Fund sat on a corpus of Rs 8,452 crore.
“Does PM really CARE for the people of Assam? Its latest audited report, released after a long delay and without accompanying notes, reveals that nearly 93 per cent of this corpus was parked in fixed deposits, while just Rs 87.85 lakh was spent during FY 2024–25’’, Gogoi said.
The Centre has now sanctioned a piecemeal Rs 379.35 crore for Assam as the first instalment under the SDRF.
He alleged that the fund was created despite the existence of the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF), with an even broader mandate to respond to large-scale emergencies.
“It was designed to consolidate and leverage resources from a wider range of sources. Yet, when Assam urgently needed resources, the PM CARES Fund failed to step in’’, he added.
Assam, instead, had to rely on contributions from organisations and good Samaritans, which ‘’raises a fundamental question: does PM CARES for Assam at all?’’, Gogoi said.
Assam reeled under devastating floods since July 19, with the three districts of Sivasagar, Charaideo and Jorhat severely affected.
