Amaravati, Nov 24 (IANS): 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 also requested the Prime Minister to depute an inter-ministerial Central team at the earliest to assess the damage and losses caused by the heavy rains.
He mentioned that the cost of the crops damage and loss to infrastructure is estimated at Rs 6,054.29 crore.
The Chief Minister wrote that depression in Bay of Bengal during November 13 to 20 triggered heavy to very heavy rains in southern part of the state.
Four south coastal districts and four Rayalaseema districts received 11.1 cm rainfall during the period against the normal rainfall of 3.2 cm with deviation of 255.5 per cent.
The Chief Minister added that heavy rains lashed temple town of Tirupati, Tirumala, Nellore town, Madanapalli, Rajampet town etc, causing inundation of low-lying areas and disrupting the normal life. Inundation in the affected areas was so much that 17 NDRF/SDRF teams and two helicopters had to be deployed for undertaking search and rescue operations.
Forty 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 four 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.
Heavy rains created havoc in the districts as the crops in thousands of acres suffered damage. 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 in an extent of 1.43 lakh hectares is damaged. Horticulture crops like banana, papaya, turmeric, onion and vegetables were damaged in an extent of 42,299 hectares.
About 240.90 km length of road, 59.6 km pipelines, 2,764 street lights, 197.05 km open drainage, 71 municipal schools/buildings/community centres were also damaged.