Nellore: District officials act fast; repair damaged highway

Nellore: The district administration finally closed the breach on the National Highway-16 close to Janardhan Reddy Colony on a war foot basis. Ministers Anil Kumar and Goutham Reddy visited the inundated colonies close to the river and asked about their plight due to floodwaters and reviewed the situation with officials. The ministers monitored the works related to filling the breach close to the NH-16 that received damages due to huge flood flow.

The officials engaged workers and filled the breach with sandbags and other material on the war foot basis for arresting further erosion. Minister Anil Kumar asked the officials to monitor the works carefully as heavy inflows are reaching the city areas. In fact, Somasila Reservoir has been getting inflows of 1.30 lakh cusecs of water from upper catchment areas and the officials are releasing 1.24 lakh cusecs of water.

Vidavalur received 4 cm of rainfall, Indukurpet 3.2 cm, Kavali and Kodavaluru received 3 cm of rain on Sunday. Many other mandals received the normal rainfall. The city and other parts have constantly been receiving showers since morning hours obstructing relief measures.

Out of 78 tmc feet of the Full Reservoir Level, officials are now maintaining only 70 tmc feet of water anticipating further inflows due to the impact of depression in the Bay of Bengal in the coming days. It may be recalled that IMD warned that a low-pressure area formed over the Bay of Bengal and there are possibilities of rainfall activity in the South Coastal Andhra Pradesh on November 2 and 3.

The district which was witnessing a deficit rainfall before the cyclone is now at 20 pc of excess rainfall within a week. In Kandaleru also officials are maintaining 60.92 tmc feet of water against the FRL of 68 tmc feet.

Further, Jana Sena leader K Vinod Kumar Reddy demanded a probe into the maintenance of Somasila Reservoir and the failure of officials in releasing water timely. He said they were bringing the issue to the notice of the party chief.

Only because of lacking plan, the officials have released a huge volume of water from the reservoir and consequently, habitations close to the city witnessed flash floods. He demanded action against the officials who neglected the safety of the dam.