Nellore braces for cyclone after fresh alert

Nellore: District Collector K V N Chakradhar Babu on Monday said the district will witness heavy rains in the coming four days due to cyclonic trough in Bay of Bengal and asked the officials to be alert in low-lying areas where there is a chance of flooding. Holding a review with officials of concerned departments, the collector said the administration has received a warning from the weather department over the rains and directed the officials to deploy filed level teams in coastal mandals.

The Collector said there were chances of 30-40 cm of rainfall in the coming four days and asked the officials to be attentive from Monday night. He also asked the officials to get ready to shift the people from low-lying areas to safer places for protection from floods, if necessary.

Chakradhar Babu asked the officials to arrange control rooms in all coastal mandals for timely communication with the central control room at the district headquarters to support the relief measures. He suggested the fishermen not to venture into the sea.

He said the state government was considering the Gadapa Gapapaku Mana Prabhutvam programme as prestigious and they have issued orders for 836 works proposed by the legislators in the district. He asked the Panchayat Raj, RWS, APSPDCL, public health and municipal engineering wings to start works and complete them in a week.

He said panchayats should send proposals suggested by the legislators to the district headquarters for administrative sanction and they have to upload the first bill after work was started. He said housewarming ceremonies would be arranged in the first week of December in a big way and preparing at least 10,000 houses. The Collector stated that the construction of 3,000 houses has been completed and another 3,000 are at the roofing stage. 45 per cent of houses were provided with Rs 35,000 for each beneficiary through SHG for starting construction works and asked the officials to report the status of works. He asked all departments to communicate reports to the assistant collector G Vidyadahari from time to time. Joint Collector R Kurmanath, NUDA Vice Chairman T Bapi Reddy and TGP special collector Sudhakar were present.