GUWAHATI: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh arrived in Assam on Saturday to take stock of the flood situation.
Rajnath Singh was accompanied by Union Minister Jitendra Singh. The Union Home Minister will make an aerial survey of flood-affected areas in Nagaon and Morigaon districts and the Kaziranga National Park.
Official sources said he would later meet the inmates of a relief camp in Morigaon district. Before leaving for Delhi later in the day, he will hold a meeting with Sonowal, ministers of concerned departments and senior government officials at the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport.
According to official sources, nearly 20 lakh people in 21 of the state’s 33 districts have been affected. The affected districts were Lakhimpur, Golaghat, Bongaigaon, Jorhat, Dhemaji, Sivasagar, Barpeta, Kokrajhar, Dibrugarh, Goalpara, Tinsukia, Dhubri, Morigaon, Sonitpur, Biswanath, Darrang, Nalbari, Baksa, Udalguri, Kamrup (metro) and Chirang.
The deluge was triggered by incessant rains for the past week. Heavy rainfall in the upper catchment areas of Arunachal Pradesh and Bhutan has worsened the situation. The sources said NDRF, SDRF and Indian Army were helping the authorities in evacuating the affected.