Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar accused the Telangana government of failing to submit utilisation reports for the funds it got from the national disaster fund (NDF) while announcing that a high-level Central team will soon conduct an aerial survey of the flood affected areas of both Telugu states.
The statement from the Union minister came after Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy demanded that the Centre should immediately release Rs2000 crore of the estimated damage worth Rs 5,000 crore.
Bandi Sanjay took to ‘X’ to release a letter addressed to the chief secretary from an official of ministry of home affairs which stated that the Telangana government did not even send daily situation reports of the flood affected areas. He said, “A high-level Central team under the guidance of the Hon’ble Union home minister will conduct an aerial survey of the affected areas in both states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.”
He revealed that he, along with his ministerial colleague G Kishan Reddy had approached the Union home minister Amit Shah about central funds for the flood affected Telangana. The “Telangana government is advised to utilise the existing SDRF funds with the state. Further, Rs 208.40 crore due in June this year was not released because the state government failed to submit the utilization certificate. As soon as the utilization certificate is submitted, the Centre is ready to release the pending funds,” said the minister of state for home affairs in his post.
Meanwhile, in the Andhra Pradesh government deployed about a 100 fire engines and fire fighters to clean the sludge from the roads and the residential houses after the flood waters receded from most of the Vijayawada city. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu warned private boat operators and traders selling vegetables from charging higher prices from the flood affected.
He also lashed out at the YSRCP for insinuating that the administration allowed Vijayawada to be flooded to save Amaravati or the chief minister’s residence. The ruling TDP and YSRCP are trading charges over the flooding of Budameru stream which flows through the Vijayawada city, parallel to river Krishna. The inability of Budameru to carry excess water had led to the floods and TDP blamed YSRCP for neglecting irrigation canals leading to the floods. Irrigation Minister Nimmal Ramanaidu even shot a video to blame the previous YSRCP government for the flooding