Consider Budameru flood a special case: CM to Centre

Vijayawada: The Inter-ministerial Central team which is touring the flood-affected areas of erstwhile Krishna and Guntur districts for the past two days to assess the losses, inspected Prakasam barrage on Thursday and enquired with the officials about the inflows and outflows. The irrigation officials submitted a report on flood inflows at Prakasam barrage to the team members. The officials said a record of 11.43 lakh cusecs of flood water received on September 1.

Later, the Central team visited the Secretariat and met Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and discussed with him the flood losses. It may be noted that the state government submitted a preliminary report to Central government stating that the state suffered a loss of Rs 6,882 crore due to floods. The Chief Minister appealed to Central team to declare the floods as national calamity as majority of people suffered heavy losses due to submergence of their houses for the past 10 days.

Appealing to the Central team to consider the present Budmeru flood fury as a special case, the CM explained that people suffered due to lack of food and water with several colonies in Vijayawada city being submerged and people forced to spend sleepless nights with no power supply for more than 10 days.

He said that Prakasam barrage received a record flood of 11.43 lakh cusecs, now it is time to think on increasing the capacity of the barrage. He said that ministers and officials rendered services without any break for the past 10 days in flood relief measures.

He said that the state government is committed to safeguard the interests of people and personally took up responsibility of cleaning their houses and also using fire tenders. He said the irrigation sector had also suffered heavy losses and unless the Central government announced good package to farmers who suffered their crops, it is difficult for them to recover.

The Chief Minister said that with the services of officials and the state government, the confidence level of people has increased. He said that the state government used drones also to supply food and water.

Responding to the appeal of the Chief Minister, the Central team members assured help by taking the facts to the notice of the Union government.