BENGALURU: Congress leader HK Patil has one request for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. to visit flood-ravaged areas of North Karnataka. While appealing to the PM, he said,  “it is too big a problem to deal with locally.’’

Patil has been named chairman of a team of Congress observers to visit the rain-affected areas of Belagavi division. Congress state unit president Dinesh Gundu Rao has selected teams of observers to visit these areas. Along with Patil, former ministers Satish Jarkiholi, R B Timmapur, Umashree and Shivanand Patil will tour Belagavi division while senior leaders Eshwar Khandre, Bose Raj, Rajashekar Patil, Priyank Kharge and Naseer Hussain will visit Raichur, Yadgir and other areas of Kalaburagi division.

“We will review the relief operations and see if more help is needed and submit a report to the party,’’ he said.“About 70 villages in 12 districts of coastal, Malnad and northern Karnataka are completely submerged, hundreds of people are missing,’’ pointed out MP (Congress) Rajya Sabha, L.Hanumanthaiah on the floor of the upper house on Tuesday. He said the Centre needs to support the state with funds and material to help alleviate the misery.

“Huge tracts of farm lands in Raichur and Yadgir are completely inundated and the losses are colossal,”  told the House. He said the rainfall in these areas had been about 41-49 per cent in excess of what is the average. “For the past two days, these areas had received very heavy rainfall and Koyna and Werna dams from Maharashtra have released water and the Almatti and Narayanpur dams in Karnataka were full,’’ he said.