Spl package for flood-hit

Vijayawada: Ahead of the cabinet meeting scheduled to be held on Wednesday, the state government has announced a special package for those who suffered badly during the recent unprecedented floods.

Addressing a press conference here late on Tuesday evening, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said that for houses which were submerged under water up to ground floor leading to damage of vehicles and other electronic equipments and furniture, the government would give an ex gratia of Rs 25,000 per house. He said this was the first time that any government had decided to pay so much of amount as compensation.

He said for houses which were damaged at the level of first floor and second floor the compensation would be Rs 10,000 per house. Naidu said for damages in other parts of the state it has been decided to give compensation of Rs 10,000 as against the earlier norm of paying Rs 4,000.

In case of small kirana shops, tea stalls and other small establishments Rs 25,000 each per establishment and damaged houses would be paid. He said it has also been decided that for MSMEs which have a turnover of Rs 40 lakh, Rs 50,000 would be paid as compensation and for MSMEs with a turnover up to Rs 1.5 crore the government would pay Rs 1 lakh. For all other MSMEs with turnover of over Rs 1.5 cr the compensation would be Rs 1.5 lakh.

Similarly, for partially damaged fishing nets, the government would pay compensation of Rs 9,000 and for fully damaged nets Rs 20,000. It would also pay compensation for loss of cattle adequately. In case of weavers, it has been decided to pay compensation of Rs 15,000.

He said the alliance government has found out that several irregularities had taken place during the previous regime where even the calamity funds were diverted and were not accounted properly. He said, he would be writing a letter to the Centre giving all the details and would seek release of Rs 514 crore immediately.

Naidu said the state during its 100-day journey had to confront many challenges due to mis-governance of a party which was unfit to be in politics and had ruined the state. “There is need to bury this devil forever,” he said. He took strong objection to the “shameless, senseless and baseless” comments being made by former CM Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on disaster management. He does not understand anything, has no knowledge of anything yet he was spitting venom and false hood against this government using his “blue media”, Naidu added.