Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy informed a central team assessing the damage that the state incurred due to floods this month has been pegged a Rs 10,320.72 crore. The monetary damages he said which could climb up even as the officials were still enumerating the damage.

During a meeting held with the central team of officials who toured Khammam, Mahabubabad and Suryapet districts in the last couple of days to assess the impact of the floods, Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy urged the Centre to give flexibility to the state government in spending the disaster response fund.

As per the present regulations, the Telangana chief minister said that though there was Rs 1,350 crore available in the state disaster response fund, not a single rupee could be spent.

Damage due to floods in Telangana as on September 8

Elaborating on that, Revanth Reddy said that the regulations stated that per kilometer of road damage only Rs 1 lakh could be spent. This way, the Telangana chief minister felt that even temporary repairs couldn’t be done to the roads. He told them that crop loss has happened in lakhs of acres, and due to sand casting that happened in the agricultural fields, farmers have suffered irreparable damage.

To prevent the floods due to the Munneru rivulet overflowing in Khammam, Revanth said that the permanent solution was only to construct the retaining wall along the rivulet. Urging the Centre to fund the construction of the retaining wall, Revanth said that the Telangana government was ready contribute to that project.

The Telangana chief minister also sought funds from the Centre for reconstructing the houses that were submerged in the floods in Rakasi Thanda, Satyanarayana Thanda and other low-lying areas, so that they could be resettled in safer locations elsewhere.

Stressing the need for prevention of losses beforehand than relief measures after the natural calamities, the chief minister has requested Centre to give early warnings on heavy rains, floods and heatwaves. He also apprised them about the state disaster response force which the State government was going to constitute by selecting 100 police personnel from various police forces from each battalion, to deal with natural disasters.

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Also informing the central team about the squalls during thunderstorms which have ravaged the Eturunagaram reserve forest uprooting more than 50,000 trees last week, Revanth Reddy asked the Centre to send a team to study the phenomenon.

The Telangana chief minister told them that if that had happened in a populated village or a town, it would have caused a major disaster. The central team told the chief minister that they haven’t seen such a phenomenon anywhere else in the country till now. He asked the Centre to provide financial aid immediately, so that things in the flood-affected areas could be brought under normal condition.

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