Amravati, November 25: Following the damage incurred in the flood caused by heavy rains, state CM Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has urged the Centre to sanction an interim relief of Rs 1,000 crore for the state. Reddy also urged the PM to depute an inter-ministerial Central team for assessing damages in the flood-hit districts of the state.
Seeking the central grant, he wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. In a letter, he has requested the Centre to come to the rescue of the state in this hour of crisis and immediately provide relief to the affected families.
He also requested the Prime Minister to depute an inter-ministerial central team at the earliest to assess the damage and losses caused by the heavy rains. He mentioned that the cost of the crops damage and loss to infrastructure is estimated at Rs 6,054.29 crore.
He informed the Centre that the relief must be released to affected families and help in restoring normalcy in the flood-affected regions by undertaking repairs and restoration of damaged infrastructure.
The Chief Minister said that depression in the Bay of Bengal from November 13 to 20 triggered heavy to very heavy rains in the southern part of the state. Four south coastal districts and four Rayalaseema districts received 11.1 cm rainfall during the period against the normal rainfall of 3.2 cm with a deviation of 255.5 percent.
The Chief Minister added that heavy rains lashed the temple towns of Tirupati, Tirumala, Nellore town, Madanapalli, Rajampet town, etc, causing inundation of low-lying areas and disrupting normal life. Inundation in the affected areas was so much that 17 NDRF/SDRF teams and two helicopters had to be deployed for undertaking search and rescue operations.
Forty people, including an SDRF constable who was on a search and rescue operation, have died, and 25 others were still reported missing. About 1,402 villages in 196 mandals and four towns were affected. A total of 324 relief camps were opened accommodating about 69,616 people, Reddy wrote.
Several highways, irrigation tanks, and canals got breached and damaged at several places in Kadapa, Chittoor, Anantapur, and Nellore district.
The CM informed that crops in thousands of acres suffered damage due to waterlogging. The worst affected were the farmers as the crops that were ready for harvesting were damaged, the Chief Minister said. He mentioned that crops like paddy, Bengal gram, cotton, black gram, groundnut, sunflower, sugarcane to an extent of 1.43 lakh hectares are damaged.
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