Jammu, Oct 30: Home Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday took stock of the rehabilitation and reconstruction work in flash-flood ravaged Leh district and directed local administration to complete the work before the onset of winter season.
Chidambaram, who reached Leh town at around 8:30 am this morning on the first leg of his two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir, straightway drove to the Chang Thang area - a high altitude plateau and paid tributes to martyrs.
Minister for Tourism, Nawang Rigzin Jora and the Chief Executive Councillor (CEC), Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) Leh, Rigzin Spalbar accompanied the Home Minister and apprised him about the magnitude of the cloudburst and extent of the damages.
 The Minister visited the Pyangong lake area where he interacted with Army troopers.
 Later, the Home Minister visited the flood-hit village, Saboo-a model village which was filled with slush- and reviewed the rehabilitation and reconstruction work.
 Chidambaram also inaugurated a newly constructed two-room set, constructed by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for the flood victims of the village.
 CII head, Charu Mathur told the Home Minister that Confederation would construct a total of 13 houses in Saboo village for those families whose houses were completely washed away by the flash flood in August. He was further told that CII would also construct 10 such houses at Solar Colony costing Rs 5 lakh each.
 He also visited the Solar Relief Camp at Choglamsar where 157 houses under Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund  and equal number of Pre-fabricated one-room sets are coming up for the flood-hit people.
 Sources said, “The victims complained to the Home Minister that they have not been paid full amount of relief announced by the Government of India. Besides the pace of reconstruction work is very slow keeping in view of the coming winter season.”
 The victims also demanded early release of next instalment of relief ex-gratia, enhancement of relief amount in the wake of high cost of construction materials in Ladakh and providing subsidized loan for establishing income generating units for those people whose shops, taxis, trucks were lost in the flood.
 The Home Minister also personally enquired about the problems being faced by the victims and assured them of the central government’s full support. He also assured to the people of full support and help from the Government of India.
 Chidambaram also paid a brief visit to Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) camp and interacted with police personnel. He also inaugurated a hall in the camp.
 Later, he chaired a meeting of local administration which was also attended by recently elected members of Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC).
 Sources said the members also expressed grave concern over the visit of All Party Delegation which had recently visited to Kashmir and Jammu.
 Spalbar however, reiterated that Ladakh should be given the status of Union Territory with legislature to join the mainstream of India keeping in view that Ladakh is geographically, culturally and ethnically different with Kashmir and Jammu.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 30 Oct 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:00:00 IST