Central team takes stock of flood ravage

Khammam: A team of Centre govrnment officials on Thursday visited the flood-hit villages and fields in Kothagduem for loss assessment. The members of the team comprising Kunal Satyarthi, Advisor to the Ministry of Home, Deputy Secretary in the Department of Expenditure Anil Gairola, Central Water Commission Director Rameshumar, Deputy Director in the Ministry of Power, Bhaya Pandey, National Remote Sensing Centre Senior Scientist Srinivasulu, Oil Seeds Director Dr Ponnu Swamy, IES Regional Officer SK Kushya interacted with farmers and inspected the flood damage to their crops.

Earlier the team visited a photo exhibition arranged on the flood havoc at the ITDA office.

Ditrict Collector Dr Priyanka Ala explained to them the extent of damage caused by floods in all the mandals in the district. Later, they toured Burgumphad and Aswapuram mandals. The team checked the status of roads, check dams, crops and habitations during their tour. The local officers explained the situation to the team.

It was learnt that 84 villages under 11 mandals werre flood-affected. The government set up 44 flood relief camps and shifted 14,081 people to the camps. As many as 41 houses completed completely, and 162 partiallly,due to the impact of floods, the team was told. Around 3,150 acres of crops were damaged in 44 villages under 16 mandals.

ITDA Project Officer Prathik Jain, SP Dr G Vineeth, Additional Collector Rambabu, DRDA Project Director Madhusudhan Raju and other officers accompanied the central team.