Over 7m HK dollars granted to Indian cyclone victims

Hong Kong, July 5 (IANS) Three grants totalling 7.032 million Hong Kong dollars (about $902,278) from Hong Kong's Disaster Relief Fund have been approved for cyclone Fani victims in Odisha, the Special Administrative Region (SAR) government said here.A Hong Kong SAR government spokesperson said that "the cyclone had affected more than 15 million people in Odisha and the grants will be used to provide hygiene kits, kitchen kits, water kits and education kits as well as household and shelter kits, to benefit around 45,100 cyclone victims", Xinhua news agency reported."To ensure that the money is used for the designated purposes, the relief agencies will be asked to submit evaluation reports and audited accounts on the use of the grants after the relief projects have been completed," the spokesperson added.The grants, together with the one approved earlier for the same cyclone in Odisha, will take the accumulative value of grants to 12.506 million HK dollars (about $16.05 million), and the number of beneficiaries would be over 76,000, the report said.
--IANS soni/bg