Tourism rides stopped on account of flood

Nagarjunasagar: Thousands of tourists from the State returned disappointed after ‘Launches’ from Telangana side stopped on Saturday. On the contrary, launches from Andhra Pradesh side ran without hinderance. Consequently, the State tourism lost lakhs of rupees in income. It may be mentioned here that the launch station was shifted from Vijaya Vihar to Down Park on Thursday.

This is located next to the earth dam and the NSP officials travel up and down to the dam from here. The NSP officials had asked organisers to shift the launches to Vijaya Vihar as they were facing inconvenience due to tourist vehicles and open urinals. However, on Saturday morning, with a flood of 4 lakh cusecs coming from above, dam authorities refused permission to run the launches.

It may be recalled that even when there was a flood of 6 lakh cusecs from upstream, there were days when the launches were run. Meanwhile, NSP officials have questioned why they were stopped for four lakh cusecs? Meanwhile, tourists questioned the officials and called on the higher ups whether Telangana would face flood risk and Andhra launches would not? However, they received no response.