Agartala, Aug 29, 2024, TRIPURA TIMES Desk

Agartala, 29 Aug: An Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) began on-the-spot assessment of damage and losses caused by week-long floods during August 19-23 in Tripura. 
The six-member IMCT, led by Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, B.C. Joshi, divided into two sub-teams, began touring various flood affected areas like Belonia in South Tripura, Sonamura, Udaipur, Dumboor, Khowai and interacted with the local officials and people.
Meanwhile, according to an official statement, the state, which has witnessed the death of 32 lives, losses of properties of both public and private, accrued a financial loss to the tune of Rs. 15,000 crore. Moreover, considering the gravity of the catastrophic situation, the state government, in a statement informed that the state has been declared as a Natural calamity Affected Area.  
The team, led by Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, B.C. Joshi on Thursday toured one of the most affected sub-divisions, Belonia under South Tripura district.  
The other team, led by Mahesh Kumar, Dy. Director, Finance Ministry visited the Gomati district and inspected the affected areas on both sides of old Subhash Setu on the Gomati river, Maharani barrage area, defunct LI Irrigation projects,  damaged fields cropping at Hirapur, the damaged Agartala- Udaipur highway at Gandhari. 
In Gomati district, the team was accompanied by Jayanta Bhattacharjya and B.B. Das, both additional district magistrates, state disaster management project officer Sharat Kumar Das and other district officials. They also visited affected areas at Kakraban and Jatanbari, Dumboor areas close to the south district.
The 6-member team comprises senior officials from the Departments of Agriculture, Expenditure (Ministry of Finance), and Ministries of Jal Shakti, Rural Development, and Road Transport and Highways.
The central team arrived at Agartala on Wednesday and joined a review meeting with the top officials of various departments of the state government at the civil secretariat. 
In the meeting, Revenue Secretary Brijesh Pandey presented an overall scenario of damages out of floods in the state. Secretary, PWD (Roads & Buildings) and Health, Kiran Gitte, Secretary, Water Resources, Abhishek Singh, and other Secretaries of several departments including agriculture and fisheries, animal resources, gave an account of the damage caused by week long floods.