New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy wrote letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking interim flood relief of 1,000 crores on Wednesday.
Reddy gave a detailed overview of the havoc caused by incessant rains and floods, mainly in Anantapuramu, Kadapa, Chittoor, and SPS Nellore districts, from November 13 to 20 in the letter.
The CM said, “The cyclonic depression in the Bay of Bengal triggered heavy to very heavy rains in the southern parts of the state, causing inundation in the low-lying areas, especially the temple towns of Tirupati, Tirumala, Nellore, Madanapalli, and Rajampet. 17 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams and 2 helicopters were deployed for undertaking search and rescue operations. A total of 1,402 villages in 196 mandals and 4 towns were affected.”
“Despite arranging teams in advance among serious efforts by the government to save lives, 40 people including an SDRF constable died as 25 reported missing. We are arranging relief camps and have arranged 324 relief camps to accommodate 69,616 persons in the affected districts so far,” he added.
He wrote, “The worst affected were the farmers as 1.42 lakh hectares of agriculture crops like paddy, Bengal gram, cotton, black gram, groundnut, sunflower, sugarcane, and 42,299 hectares of horticulture crops like banana, papaya, turmeric, onions, and vegetables suffered damages worth Rs. 1,353.82 crores and Rs. 48.06 crores, respectively.”
“Civic infrastructure including 240.90 km roads, 59.6 km pipelines, 197.05 km open drains, 2,764 street lights, and 71 municipal school buildings and community centres suffered a loss of Rs 1,252 crores. Panchayat Raj roads of 2,254.32 km inflicted a loss of Rs. 381.65 crores while rural water supply schemes worth Rs. 453.33 crores were also adversely affected.”
“Several highways, irrigation tanks, and canals in Kadapa, Chittoor, Anantapuramu, and SPS Nellore districts are breached. Besides, damages to hundreds of electricity feeders, substations, and distribution lines caused a loss of Rs. 252 crores,” he further wrote, requesting the Central government to help provide relief to the affected families and restore damaged infrastructure by undertaking repairs.
The CM also requested for an Inter-Ministerial Central Team to visit and assess total damages in the state.
(Avya Mathur)