While Bangkokians have launched their Big Cleaning Day with great fanfare, tens of thousands of homes outside the city's floodwalls remain under water.
These floodwalls have been erected on the orders of Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra, who is determined to keep the inner city of Bangkok dry.
With all the floodgates tightly regulated by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), people in Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani have had to bear the brunt of the deluge.
For more than three months these unfortunate people have been trapped in their homes, surrounded by stagnant water that is now polluted. Many wonder why they are being treated like second-class citizens in their own country.
The government has said that it will give 5,000 baht in compensation to each family affected by flooding. But this amount is too small compared with the damage done to their homes.
The same is true with farmers, who will get a little over 1,000 baht for each rai of farmland damaged by the floods. These poor farmers have lost everything. They need much more money than what the government is offering.
With no income, they have had to depend on relief supplies distributed by the government and donors.
Compared with these poor people, flood-hit industrial parks have received full support from creditors to resume their operations.
This is not unusual, as these big export companies employ a lot of people and help the government gain more foreign exchange, thereby contributing to economic growth in our country.
Nonetheless, the government should consider increasing the amount of compensation for farmers and home-owners, since they have been made to suffer because officials mismanaged the crisis.
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