Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has urged the Centre to sanction an interim relief of Rs 1,000 crore to the state and depute an inter-ministerial Central team for assessing damages in the flood-affected districts. The Chief Minister wrote letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking the Central grant. He requested the Centre to come to the rescue of the state in this hour of crisis and immediately provide relief to the affected families and restore normalcy by undertaking repairs and restoration of damaged infrastructure. He mentioned that the cost of the crops damage and loss to infrastructure is estimated at Rs 6,054.29 crore.
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 2 helicopters had to be deployed for undertaking search and rescue operations. 40 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 4 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 worst affected were the farmers as the crops that were ready for harvesting were damaged, the Chief Minister said. Agriculture crops like paddy, Bengal gram, cotton, black gram, groundnut, sunflower, sugarcane to an extent of 1.43 lakh hectares are damaged. Horticulture crops like banana, papaya, turmeric, onion and vegetables were damaged to an extent of 42,299 hectares. About 240.90 km length of the road, 59.6 km pipelines, 2,764 street lights, 197.05 km open drainage, 71 municipal schools/buildings/community centres was also damaged.