100 teams to tackle flood in Gujarat

A State-level bankers' committee meeting was held in Ahmedabad to discuss the issues pertaining to rehabilitation and assessment of the flood situation in Surat.

To assess the financial damage to the state and to the concerned individuals, the committee decided to form 100 teams, comprising experts from the government and the banking and insurance sectors.

The teams have been directed to meet once in 15 days for the next two months to give regular updates on the information collected on the flood damage.

The preliminary meeting, attended by seven banks, six departments of the government and four insurance companies was presided by Anil Patel, minister of state for industry and Saurabh Patel, minister of state for finance and energy.

While none of the institutions were able to offer estimates of the damage so far, sources in the SLBC committee said the conservative figure could be around Rs 4,000 crore so far.

Insurance companies in the meeting declared that insurance claims of Rs 2,00,000 and below would be settled within 15 days. Any claim above that amount would be settled on account payment.

"With a meeting every 15 days, we hope to gather an accurate assessment of the flood situation and formulate our further plans to bring the situation to normalcy, "said Purshottam Kumar, Conveynor for the SLBC meeting.