Cyclone Amphan: West Bengal gives details of over Rs 1 lakh crore damage to central team

West Bengal government on Saturday told a central team that the state has suffered damages of over Rs 1 lakh crore due to cyclone Amphan and submitted details of the damage caused to infrastructure and various other sectors.

The state government shared assessment of damages of Rs 1,02,442 crore with the inter-ministerial central team, which visited the state to assess the ground situation.

The "damage report" of the state about the super cyclone said that as many as 28.56 lakh houses have been damaged and crops in 17 lakh hectares of agriculture land had been damaged.

Referring to fisheries, it said 8,007 boats and 1.48 lakh huts had been damaged.

The cyclone damaged 2148.22 km of road, 355 bridges and culverts and 10091.17 km of rural roads, the report said.

It said 1.58 lakh hectares of the forest area has been affected.

Referring to education infrastructure, it said 14,640 schools and 301 colleges suffered damages.

The state government also listed damage to health, anganwadi and urban infrastructure besides that to the industry including MSMEs.

Transport, fire, emergency infrastructure, godowns, housing and correctional homes also suffered damages, the report said.

A press note said that seven-member team held discussion with Chief Secretary and senior officers of various departments of West Bengal government.

The team included Anuj Sharma Joint Secretary (CIS) Ministry of Home Affairs; Narendra Kumar, Director, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; RP Debey Assistant Commissioner, Department of Fisheries; SC Meena, Director (FCD) Department of Expenditure; Sidhartha Mitra Sup. Engineer (Coord) Ministry of Jai Shakti; Rishika Sharan, Director, Ministry of Power; and Samiran Saha, Executive Engineer (SG) Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

( With inputs from ANI )