Chandigarh: Punjab NRI affairs and industries minister Sanjeev Arora on Tuesday appealed to the Punjabis settled abroad to extend wholehearted support and donate to rebuild Punjab after recent devastating floods in the region.
Addressing newspersons here, Arora underlined the strong bond between Punjab and its Punjabi diaspora, and said that NRIs have always stood by the state in adverse circumstances and their support is once again vital.
He said that on Tuesday itself, about 13 industrialists met chief minister Bhagwant Mann and together contributed over Rs 6 crore to the state’s Rangla Punjab Relief Fund. The Cabinet minister, Arora, also announced that he too donated Rs 50 lakh from his charitable trust for the flood-ravaged families.
Asked about the floods, Arora said that 2,300 villages have been submerged, affected more than 2 million people, and destroyed crops across five lakh acres of land in these catastrophic floods in Punjab. Tragically, he said that 56 lives were lost, and around seven lakh people were rendered homeless. In addition, 3,200 government schools were damaged, 19 colleges reduced to rubble, 1,400 clinics and hospitals were ruined, 8,500 kilometers of roads were destroyed, and 2,500 bridges collapsed. The total damage amounts to approximately Rs. 14,000 crore, the actual figure can be even higher, Arora held.
