New Delhi:
Congress President Sonia Gandhi today directed all party MPs and MLAs to donate their one month salary for relief work in the flood-ravaged Uttarakhand, where heavy rains and flash floods have claimed at least 150 people and devastated several towns.
Mrs Gandhi also directed Members of Parliament to give Rs 10 lakh each from their MPLAD fund for carrying out relief work there," party's communication department in-charge Ajay Maken told PTI.
Congress has currently 203 members in the Lok Sabha and 72 in Rajya Sabha.
The party has also set up a control room at Dehradun to accelerate the relief work. Party's secretary Sanjay Kapoor and the Seva Dal chief Mahendra Joshi have been sent to Dehradun to monitor the work.
"All state Congress chiefs are being asked to send all the relief materials from their states to Uttarakhand immediately," Mr Maken said.
Terming it as the "worst tragedy of the millennium", Agriculture Minister of Uttarakhand government Harak Singh Rawat said, "It will take us at least five years to recover from the extensive damages caused to the entire infrastructure network in the Kedarnath area which is the worst affected."
Mr Rawat, who had visited the Kedarnath area, said that he spent five hours there and was shocked to see the extent of the damage caused to the buildings and area adjoining the shrine.
Operations to rescue over 9000 stranded in Kedarnath and Badrinath were stepped up with deployment of 40 helicopters.