Losses mount in Visakhapatnam
320 teams including state officials will enumerate losses
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-10-15 02:06 GMT
Hyderabad: The damages and losses caused by Cyclone Hudhud are proving to be much more than what had been initially anticipated by the state government. Officials say that the money needed to rebuild Vizag will be enough to build a small capital city for AP.
Preliminary assessment of damages have indicated that private properties and Central government institutions bore the brunt of the cyclone more than state government properties.
While almost every family in Vizag was affected in some way or the other, Central government properties and equipment have suffered the most.
An official said, “The cyclone could not have come at a worse time. When the residuary state does not even have a capital and is struggling to raise funds to construct one, Hudhud has ripped apart a flourishing metropolitan city like Vizag.
Rebuilding it would cost an amount that is equivalent to the amount needed to construct a new but small capital city,” the official said.
AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tues-day that the estimated lo-ss would be submitted to the Centre in a few days.
Before the arrival of the Prime Minister, Mr Naidu, who is camped at Visakhapatnam to oversee relief operations, had said that as per initial estimates, the Indian Navy had suffered losses of Rs 2,000 crore.
The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, the biggest public-sector enterprise, suffered damages worth at least Rs 1,000 crore.
Mr Naidu added that the Vizag Airport had suffered losses of Rs 500 crore. Road and rail networks, mainly the national highways and railway platforms, suffered damages worth at least Rs 800 crore.
Though the unofficial estimate is over Rs 1 lakh crore, officials in the AP State Disaster Management department said that a ‘very preliminary’ estimate of loss was Rs 8,000 crore to both public and private properties in Vizag alone.
“Over 320 teams comprising of deputy collectors, tahsildars and mandal officers have been sent to enumerate the losses,” officials said. AP chief secretary I.Y.R. Krishna Rao has been monitoring operations.
VIP visits disrupt relief operations:
Prominent Vizagites, including of former Union secretary E.A.S. Sarma, are visibly upset with VIPs streaming in, in calamity-hit Vizag, disrupting relief and rehabilitation works.
The administration and government functioning in Vizag has collapsed and in spite of that, Mr Sarma says, many officials are forced to accompany the governor as protocol.
Private cabs remained unavailable even for emergency purposes as most of them were booked for these VIPs.
“Chief Minister and official presence is justified. But what is the need for the Governor to visit at this point in time. The entire administration has collapsed. I see no relief or aid coming from the government when so many livelihoods have been shattered,” Mr Sarma told this newspaper.