Lalu terms Bihar flood as 'man-made' deluge

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav on Saturday tore into Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over the flood situation in the state and dubbed it as 'man-made' deluge, by latter's officials.

"It was a man-made flood in Bihar. The engineer of Nitish Kumar did all this, he did something with the dam and brought flood in the state," Lalu told ANI.

He even attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for visiting the state and questioned as to why not a single penny was spent in past in the similar situation.

"When Bihar suffered with floods in past, Modi ji didn't feel it was important enough to visit, didn't allocate even a single penny," he said.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Modi declared an immediate relief of Rs. 500 crore for flood-hit Bihar after undertaking an aerial survey of affected areas.

He also announced an ex-gratia of Rs two lakh to the families of those killed and Rs 50,000 for those injured grievously by the floods.

The Prime Minister was accompanied by Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi. He also reviewed relief and rehabilitation work with them in detail.

He assured both that he would be sending a central team to immediately assess the flood-related loss in the state.

He instructed that in order to assess the claims of farmers' crop insurance; the insurance companies should send their supervisors to the flood-affected areas so that the farmers can be provided relief immediately.

The Road and Transport Ministry has also been directed to take appropriate action to repair all flood-damaged roads and electricity infrastructure in the state.

Over one crore seventy lakh people in have been affected by the floods in the state. The death toll has mounted to 415, with 21 districts being affected by the deluge.

To tackle the flood threat, the Indian Prime Minister discussed flood control in the border areas with Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba in his recent visit to India.

The two also agreed that a detailed project report of Saptakosi high dam project and Sunkoshi storage cum diversion scheme would be prepared soon.