Telangana Floods causes Rs 1,400 crores loss

Hyderabad, July 20: Telangana State government pegged the preliminary damage caused due to the recent floods at Rs 1,400 crore. A report to this effect was submitted to the union Government and an immediate assistance of Rs 1,000 crore was sought from the Centre.

In its report, the State government said the Roads and Buildings Department suffered a loss of Rs 498 crore due to damages to causeways and roads. Further, a loss of Rs 449 crore was incurred by the Panchayat Raj Department, Rs 33 crore by the Irrigation Department, Rs 379 crore by the Municipal Administration Department, and Rs 7 crores by the Power utilities, among others. The respective departments prepared reports based on preliminary estimates and submitted to the Centre. The government sought another Rs 25 crore towards losses incurred due to collapse of houses and also shifting of the victims to relief camps among others.

Meanwhile, Special Chief Secretary, Irrigation and Command Area Development (I&CAD) Rajat Kumar on Wednesday said the Central government has not responded to the loss to be caused by the Polavaram backwaters to Telangana along with other issues once the project becomes operational. “We have reported many times to the Centre to study the Polavaram backwaters issue. But it did not respond,” he said while interacting with the media here on Wednesday.

The project would not only submerge up to one lakh acres but also cause damage to crops as well as pose a danger to the historic sites. The pilgrimage places — Bhadrachalam and Parnashala will also get submerged, he said. Referring to torrential rains that lashed the State recently, he said some damage was caused to Kaddam and Kaleshwaram project. A committee will investigate all issues at Kaddam and Kaleswaram projects. For the first time in 100 years, the State received such heavy rainfall in the last few days and four mandals in the Adilabad district registered the highest rainfall. The catchment areas near the Kaddam project received heavy rainfall resulting in huge inflows into the project, thereby prompting the engineers to open all the gates to release the water downstream.

Kumar said there was not much damage to the Kaddam project since repairs were carried out before the onset of the monsoon. Nations across the world are witnessing heavy rains due to climate change, he said.

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