People's Democracy

MPs Appeal For Relief To Aila Victims

 
VARIOUS members of parliament, cutting across parties, have appealed to both the chairman of Rajya Sabha and speaker of Lok Sabha to request the MPs of both the Houses to donate Rs 10,00,000 each from their MPLADS funds for the relief and rehabilitation of the nearly 67 Lakh people affected by the cyclone Aila.

Among those who signed the appeal included Sitaram Yechury, Md Amin, Brinda Karat, Prasanta Chatterjee, Shyamal Chakraborty, Tarini Kanta Roy,  Matilal Sarkar, Tapan Sen, Moinul Hassan, Saman Pathak (all CPI-M), D Raja (CPI), Jayanti Natarajan (INC), S S Ahluwalia (BJP), Dr Barun Mukherjee (Forward Bloc), Tariq Anwar (NCP), V Maitreyan (AIADMK), N K Singh (JD-U), Virendra Bhatia (SP),  and Tiruchi Shiva (DMK).

In the appeal submitted to the presiding officers of both the Houses, the MPs outlined the gravity of the situation following the extraordinary natural calamity in the form of cyclone Aila which hit Bengal on May 25 2009. Primary assessment indicates that about 67 lakh people have been affected. Loss of life has crossed over 137. The number of fully and partially damaged houses reached 3.27 lakh and 5.83 lakh respectively.

They noted that the President of India acknowledged the graveness of the situation in her speech dated June 4, 2009 and assured to extend all possible assistance to the cyclone affected people of West Bengal. �On earlier occasions e.g earthquake in Gujarat, floods in Bihar and Tsunami in South India, members of parliament were requested to donate substantial amount from their MPLADS and the MPLADS rule was relaxed to that effect as special cases. MPLADS Committee monitored the entire expenditure in collaboration with the respective state governments. In the instant case, we urge upon you to consider our proposal to give similar relaxations and request you to call upon all members of parliament to donate Rupees 10 lakh each from their MPLADS for the cyclone Aila affected people of West Bengal�, stated the MPs.

(INN)