Vijayawada: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has said that the state faced the flood situation effectively, which helped reduce loss of life and damage to crops.
Naidu on Tuesday visited the Budameru canal where the three flood-induced breaches have been plugged. He walked around and made enquiries. Officials explained to him how the canal suffered breaches and on the inflow of a huge quantity of water.
The CM noted that several districts experienced heavy rainfall in an unprecedented manner while the Krishna river received a record level of floodwater inflow, resulting in a discharge of 11.43 lakh cusecs from the Prakasam barrage into the sea. This resulted in canals and drains overflowing while the Budameru canal too received heavy inflow of water. All these disrupted normal life.
He said, “In the first three days of heavy rainfall and floods, we were unsure as to what to do and how to handle the situation.”
The chief minister slammed the previous government for “disrupting the systems” in the last five years. This, he said, resulted in encroachments, illegal constructions and unauthorised land registrations at Budameru canal. The canal got filled with such illegal occupations.
“Lack of regular maintenance of the Budameru canal and a failure to clear all the accumulated waste caused obstruction to the free flow of water. This led to suffering for six lakh people by way of flooding.”
“We tried to send food packets to every affected family. On a single day, we distributed 10 lakh food packets and even used choppers and drones to deliver food and drinking water to the people.
Naidu repeatedly trained his guns on the YSRC. He alleged that “some people” released three boats in a careless manner when the Krishna river was having flow of 11.20 lakh cusecs “in an attempt to cause damage to the Prakasam Barrage.”
The barrage, he noted, has a history of 170 years. The risk would have been more to the barrage if the wayward boats hit the column instead of the 15-metric tonne capacity counterweight. In its impact, the counterweight broke into two pieces.
He asked why the boats were not properly secured and why they were painted in the colours of the YSRC, if they did not belong to it. “We will take stern action against the errant,” he said, and added that this would be treated as an act of sedition.
The CM said enumeration teams were sent to every affected house and data collected about one lakh affected people. They were studying the damage caused to the island villages, Kolleru area and downstream of Yeleru canal and the falling of boulders in Visakhapatnam, so as to take up restoration works soon, he said.
He said the state government is getting donations from various sources to tackle the crisis. Even school students were coming forward with donations to help flood victims.
