Nitish chairs meeting on Patna waterlogging

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday chaired a high-level meeting, participated by elected representatives of the city including Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, where deliberations were held on the recent catastrophic waterlogging that followed three days of heavy rainfall.

Apart from Prasad who represents Patna Sahib in the Lok Sabha, former Union minister Ram Kripal Yadav who is the MP from adjoining Pataliputra, Rajya Sabha member R K Sinha and city Mayor Sita Sahu were also present.

Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, members of the state cabinet including Nand Kishore Yadav - the road construction department minister who is also the Patna Sahib MLA - participated in the meeting.

MLAs and MLCs representing Patna and top officials led by Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar were also present there.

The Chief Minister observed that the elected representatives had come up with "valuable suggestions" and directed officials to hold a meeting with the former so that their inputs could be taken into consideration for devising short-term and long-term solutions to the problem of waterlogging in the city.

He also instructed that water be flushed out of localities which are still reported to be waterlogged.

Kumar also informed the elected representatives that a decision was taken for setting up a committee which would fix accountability for the waterlogging that caused huge loss of property and a spurt in vector-borne diseases.

He also said the committee has been asked to come out with proposals for preventing recurrence of a similar problem in future.