Chennai : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edapaddi Palaniswami on Friday requested the Railways ministry to waive off freight charges for relief materials being sent for cyclone Gaja victims in different parts of the state. In a letter to the union minister Piyush Goyal, the Chief Minister said that this was done in the case of Kerala that had also suffered floods recently.

“I request the Railways to waive the freight charges collected from donors for the relief materials sent to the stations in disaster affected areas addressed to the District Collectors, as has been done in the case of recent Kerala floods,” Palaniswami said in his letter to Goyal.

Now, relief material is being collected from all over the country. Now if the railways ministry offered the concession it would great help the countless hapless victims. The cyclone, which crossed the Tamil Nadu coast on November 16, has ‘devastated’ the affected districts, with people having lost their homes, livestock, plantation and livelihood.

The cyclone ‘Gaja’ had crossed the Tamil Nadu coast early on November 16 between Nagapattinam and Vedaranyam, about 300 km from Chennai and claimed over 60 lives. It left behind a trail of destruction in Nagapattinam Tiruvarur, Thanjavur and Pudukottai.