Uttarakhand’s Monsoon Mayhem: Cabinet Secretary Ajit K Seth’s response

CABINET secretary Ajit Kumar Seth, known to be calm and composed in all difficult situations, has turned hyper-active during the last couple of days, as the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand ground to a halt because of the recent monsoon fury. Despite being a reluctant speaker and media-shy bureaucrat, Seth chose a television channel to…
announce how the government would take Indian Air Force’s help “to evacuate people from all corners of the state” as soon as it was realised that the disaster was unprecedented in size and scale.
Seth, who did not interact with media on any important government matter, however appeared in television channels to talk about the Centre’s interventions when a 6.8 magnitude earthquake jolted the state of Sikkim in September 2011.
On Thursday, Seth held a review meeting in New Delhi with senior Central government officers and those from defence services, ITBP, Border Road Organization and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to coordinate the rescue and relief measures for Uttarakhand where a massive rainfall resulted into collapsing of structures including shrines, hotels, commercial and residential buildings etc. Till Thursday evening, about 33,000 people were evacuated, but over 60,000 people were still stranded in the flood-hit districts of the state.
As many as 45 aircraft and helicopters were deployed in the rescue operations. 
Cabinet secretary Seth has directed the BSNL to immediately repair the telephone towers to restore communication in the next two to three days, a cabinet secretariat release issued on Thursday said.
It was also assessed that about 8,000 tonnes of food-grains are available with the state government of Uttarakhand. The meeting chaired by Seth also took stock of the arrangements to ensure fuel availability in the flood-hit state.