Special package for Uddanam

Palasa (Srikakulam): Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, after announcing a slew of relief measures, on Tuesday offered a special package for Uddanam to help the victims of Titli cyclone to stand on their feet once again.

Though Naidu did not reveal what the package would be like, he, however, said that it would help the farmers of cashew and coconut plantations who suffered most to piece together their lives once again.

Naidu, during his whirlwind tour of the Titli-affected villages in Vajrapukothur and Palasa mandals in the district, learnt from the victims first-hand how they were tiding over the crisis.

In fact, his son and Panchayat Raj Minister Nara Lokesh has been camping in the district, supervising relief operations and coordinating efforts to restore normalcy at the earliest.

After landing at Plasa, Naidu drove through the villages affected by the cyclone and instead of pontificating on what the government was doing,
he, for a change, chose to listen to them.

He repeatedly asked them to explain to him the problems they were facing so that the officials could attend to them immediately. He requested the affected people not to resort agitations but cooperate with the government officials who have been given clear instructions to reach relief to all of them as quickly as possible.

The chief minister assured to restore power supply in one day in all cyclone-affected mandals and said that generators have been provided to all villages to restore water supply and to recharge inverters and cell phones.

He expressed unhappiness over central government’s silence on the request of the state government for an interim relief of Rs 1,200 crore. Naidu, lashing out at YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for not visiting cyclone-affected villages, questioned why he had not even though he was in the neighbouring Vizianagaram district. "He kisses people but does not go to them when they are in distress," he said.

Meanwhile Lokesh, who is camping in Palasa for the past three days visited several cyclone-affected villages this morning. He is making efforts to restore power supply on war footing. He inspected the works at Mandasa sub-station and directed the officials to restore power supply to 38 villages and 244 habitations in Mandasa mandal immediately.

Conducting a review meeting on drinking water supply, the minister instructed the officials to press in to service water tankers and supply water to 244 residential areas. He asked the officials to complete the enumeration of damaged houses.

ITC officials met Lokesh at Mandasa RDO office and handed over 1,15,200 biscuit packets, 25,000 kg wheat flour, 1,00,800 noodles packets for distribution in cyclone-affected regions.