Kedarnath reconstruction work to start soon: Bahuguna

Meeting of the sub-committee to be held in Delhi this month to finalise the plan for the reconstruction of the flood-ravaged areas of the hill state

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has given its report on the reconstruction of the Kedarnath area to the cabinet sub-committee, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said on Wednesday.

Bahuguna said a meeting of the sub-committee to be held in Delhi this month would finalise the plan for the reconstruction of the flood-ravaged areas of the hill state on the basis of the GSI report. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh heads the sub-committee.

Bahuguna was talking to reporters at Guptkashi in Rudraprayag district where he had accompanied Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma on a tour of some of the worst-affected areas following the flash flood calamity in June in the state.

The Uttarakhand CM met a delegation of those who had lost their property in the flash flood and assured them that the government was looking to extend suitable compensation to all.

He also said that a compensation package was being readied for those whose shops were destroyed in the flash flood while hotel and taxi operators, too, were to be given attention.

Meanwhile, talking about cyclone Phailin, which tore through the country's east coast on Saturday, Bahuguna said that had a system existed which could warn them about cloudbursts, Uttarakhand could have vastly limited the damage caused by the June calamity in the state. Advance notifications by weather officials had led to mass evacuations in the eastern coastal states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh which helped minimise the loss of human lives in cyclone Phailin.