Imphal, August 22: The State Cabinet has decided to announce 39.91 percent of the agriculture land in the four valley districts as flood affected.

Simultaneously the Cabinet has also decided to proceed with the proposed August 30 Panchayat and Zilla Parsihad election as scheduled.

Disclosing this a well-placed source said that the Cabinet meeting which was held at the Chief Minister�s conference hall this afternoon with the CM in the chair deliberated in detail over whether the situation calls for the Government to declare Manipur a flood affected State.

The meeting also discussed in detail the upcoming Panchayat and Zilla Parishad election.

Reports submitted by the respective DCs of the four valley districts, IFCD, and Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister N Loken were discussed threadbare during the meeting.

After minute discussions of the extent of the damage caused by the flood, the Cabinet decided to announce 39.91 percent of the agricultural land in the four districts, namely Imphal East, West, Bishnupur and Thoubal as flood affected.

Out of the total 1, 00210 hectares of land under agriculture in these four districts, 40,002 hectares have been damaged by the flood.

The loss suffered in the flood has been roughly estimated at Rs 600 crores.

Of these the amount lost through the destruction of paddy fields is pegged at Rs 108.39 crores, public utilities Rs 307.77 crores while pisciculture loss has been worked out at Rs 79 crores.

However, despite this loss the Cabinet decided that the situation in the State does not merit the flood-affected status.

On the Panchayat and Zilla Parishad election, the Cabinet meeting decided against postponing it for the moment as there are strong possibilities that the floodwater may recede in the next few days.

Mention may be made here that there is a directive from the Court instructing the State Government to hold the Panchayat election within August.

The State Election Commission had earlier suggested defendant of the election or to hold the election in two phases in the face of the flood situation.

On the other hand the Panchayat Minister had made it known that there would not be any problem in holding the election as scheduled.