Hyderabad: Telugu Desam Party president N
Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday held Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K
Rosaiah and his government responsible for the destruction
that followed the recent floods in five districts of state.
He demanded a thorough inquiry into the administrative
lapses after the unprecedented floods.
Addressing a press conference at the TDP headquarters
here after a six-day tour of the flood-hit areas, Chandrababu
pointed out that the government failed to act on the warnings
issued by the Central Water Commission on the heavy flood
discharge into the Krishna river, due to which Mahbubnagar and
Kurnool districts suffered heavy damage while Nalgonda, Guntur
and Krishna too bore the brunt.
Chandrababu wondered what the irrigation minister and
engineers were doing when flood water gushed into Srisailam.
Why did they not empty the Srisailam reservoir and release
water into downstream Nagarjuna Sagar which was about 45 per
cent empty, he questioned.
The Kurnool district Collector Mukesh Kumar Meena kept
the local CWC engineer waiting for over 90 minutes when the
latter had gone to brief him about the flood threat. Even
subsequently, the Collector failed to take the required steps
to mitigate the devastation, Chandrababu alleged.
Six crest gates of the Sunkesula reservoir did not
function when the flood water was required to be discharged.
As the water overflowed from the dam, it left Alampur town
totally submerged, he pointed out.
Even after the floods hit vast areas, there was no proper
supervision of rescue and relief operations. The irrigation
minister was out of picture while the municipal administration
minister was nowhere to be seen in the towns that were ravaged
by floods.
The revenue and relief minister accompanied the Chief
Minister on aerial visits while the health minister was busy
with election work in Sholapur (Maharashtra), the Leader of
Opposition pointed out.
The administrative systems in the state has failed over
the last five years of the Congress rule. As the then Finance
Minister Rosaiah too was responsible for the systemic failure
as he failed to activate the government machinery, Naidu said.
"People in Kurnool asked me one basic question. When the
government could press more than 15 helicopters into service
to trace the missing helicopter carrying the then Chief
Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, why could not helicopters be
deployed to rescue those trapped in floods? I had no answer
to this, Naidu said.
He also demanded that the union government immediately
declare the AP floods as a national calamity and extend more
monetary assistance than the Rs 1000 crore announced by Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh.
Naidu demanded that insurance claims by farmers who have
lost all the crops in the floods should be settled fully and
the government also should pay adequate compensation to them.
He also said that permanent houses should be built at the
government expense for the flood-affected people like it was
done at Latur in Maharashtra after the earthquake.
Telugu Desam Parliamentary Party leader Nama Nageswara
Rao and senior leaders K Yerran Naidu, Nagam Janardhan Reddy
and others were present at the press conference.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, October 13, 2009, 17:52