Bengal LF Govt Calls For More Aircraft

For Lifting Relief To The Andamans

B Prasant

THE Bengal Left Front government has urged upon the union government to make available more aircraft because a lack of an adequate air support is grounding relief materials that are packed and ready to go. Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has been in touch with the union government’s defence minister over this issue. In between, a total of more than Rs 20 lakh could be collected for the chief minister’s relief fund.

Bhattacharjee told newspersons at the Writers’ Buildings that while more than five thousand litres of potable water could be air lifted to the islands, canisters containing more than 45 thousand litres of drinking water are languishing uselessly at the Kolkata airport.  All this was caused by the fact that aircraft in sufficient strength were not available to the Bengal LF government. The state government has even made use of army and air force aircraft to have relief materials, especially potable water, squeezed in as the defence aircraft fly out to the islands.

There is an acute shortage of potable water in the tsunami-hit Andaman and Nicobar islands as per telephonic communications from housing minister of the Bengal LF government, Gautam Deb who has been camping out in the island and coordinating all relief efforts.  Bhattacharjee informed the media that 111 metric tonnes worth of relief supplies would be loaded onto a ship and sent forth to the islands.  The ship will dock at Port Blair quite soon, it was said.

Meanwhile the Kolkata Municipal Corporation is also sending 50 specialised and experienced personnel to handle the funeral of the thousands of people killed in the tsunami disaster. The step was taken following requests by the union and the state governments to the KMC.

TENSE SITUATION IN THE ISLANDS

With relief material from Bengal pouring in, the administration of the Andaman and Nicobar islands have proved a miserable failure in the task of distributing the material among the distraught people who are becoming more and more frustrated and angry. 

They have every reason to be so. Drinking water is first casualty in a situation where a natural disaster of massive proportions has erupted. The administration led by the governor Lt Gen B S Thakur, and deputy governor,  Raj Kapase has remained overtaken with inertia and ineptitude to the point that they freely admitted in a media conference that they were more interested about the bandobast over prime minister’s visit than with the relief and rescue work.  Several BJP leaders were present at the briefing.

In the meanwhile, a series of aftershocks, some measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale has been hitting the islands periodically, adding to a mounting panic.  The CPI (M) has started to run three relief camps. Thousands of people, mostly belonging to the different tribal groups who inhabit the islands, are missing. The meteorology department has issued a warning that eruptions of volcanic mud-and-ash flows might well occur in the near future.  The relief material lie unpacked at Port Blair airport. The administration has ignored the cries of the people for food, water, clothes, medicines, and blankets. Increasingly the survivors of the tsunami disaster are falling sick from diarrhoea and enteric fever. The situation remains tense as the people’s anger at the administration mounts.