SURAT: Administrative officers in Valsad from both the collectorate and the municipality have taken up the task to clean the city on a war footing after two days of heavy flooding.
Meanwhile, the possibility of another round of flood threatens the city keeping the administration on tenterhooks.
“We are hopeful of completing the major cleaning work by Thursday evening if it doesn’t get flooded again. We had planned to complete the cleaning in 48 hours with support of various municipalities and Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC),” said Kshipra Agre, collector.
Around 400 cleaning staff from five municipalities and SMC are working to clean the flood-affected areas in Valsad. To prevent outbreak of diseases the cleaning work was started on priority basis. However, the recurrent flooding is proving a concern in Valsad as 350 people were shifted to shelter home again on Wednesday.
“Arrangements for Food and drinking water are being done by both government and the NGO activists,” she added.
On the other hand, Navsari has kept its cleaning activities in abeyance while another round of flooding is expected on Wednesday night.
“Staff of 180 people has been deployed but the water level started increasing again on Wednesday and will keep rising further due to heavy rain upstream of Purna river. We are focusing on relief work at present,” said Jigish Shah, president, Navsari municipality. On Wednesday 2,200 people were kept in 13 shelter homes in Navsari city.
Meanwhile, the district administration claimed that over 18,000 people are affected due to floods in Navsari.
“Food packets are being provided to around 18,000 people. We are closely monitoring the situation at present as the water levels are rising in Ambika and Purna, both rivers,” said Amit Yadav, district collector, Navsari.
