Guwahati, August 17: The Assam government has extended its interim flood relief programme to another 31,951 families in Sivasagar, Charaideo, Jorhat and Golaghat, taking the total number of beneficiaries to 96,842, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Sunday.
Each beneficiary family will receive one-time financial assistance of Rs 15,000. The latest disbursement has taken the government’s expenditure on the assistance to Rs 145.26 crore. Sarma said the distribution was nearing completion, although enumeration was still underway in the Sivasagar Assembly constituency.
He said another 3,000 to 4,000 families could be covered in a third phase, taking the total number of beneficiaries to nearly one lakh.
The government is also conducting a Rapid Damage Assessment in the four districts, with 1,144 teachers deployed for the exercise. So far, officials have uploaded details of 26,681 damaged houses and 18,887 cattle sheds, along with damage involving 41 handloom-related raw material cases and 5,98,691 livestock. Around 99,256 farmers have also been identified as having suffered crop-related damage.
Sarma said the first phase of the assessment was expected to conclude by August 28-29, after which the details would be published on a web portal for verification. A second round of field verification will begin around September 1-2 to identify omissions or discrepancies, with the final list targeted for publication by September 15-16.
The government has also provided Rs 2,500 through Direct Benefit Transfer to Orunodoi beneficiaries in the affected areas.
Sarma said the government aimed to complete the assessment and transfer eligible assistance through DBT before Durga Puja. Damage recorded on the government portal has so far been estimated at around Rs 480 crore.
