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Business chambers to adopt quake-hit villages for relief

Three leading chambers of business and industry on Friday agreed to adopt clusters of quake-hit villages in Gujarat for relief and rehabilitation as official death toll reached 14,241 with 30,529 people injured.

Announcing the decision after a meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on Disaster Management, Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj said that FICCI, CII and ASSOCHAM would take over these villages and carry out immediate relief and long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation.

Details for the exercise were being discussed between cabinet secretary T R Prasad and representatives of the three chambers, she said, adding that chiefs of public sector undertakings were also holding parleys with Prasad for similar action.

Voicing satisfaction over the pace of restoration of infrastructural facilities like power, communication and railway links, Swaraj said that broad-gauge link with Bhuj, which has been flattened, is likely to be restored by Saturday allowing large-scale movement of relief goods.

"We are satisfied that within a week of the disaster, infrastructural facilities have been resurrected in Bhuj and other quake-hit areas," she said.

She said that all efforts were being made to provide help and information to those bringing in relief material into the state, where at least 949 villages need to be rehabilitated.

The Complete Coverage | List of earthquake sites

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