Opposition blames govt for failure to handle flood situtation

HYDERABAD: The government came in for sharp criticism from the opposition parties for lack of coordination between various departments and the

inaction of Kurnool district administration. "It was overaction at the Secretariat level and inaction at the district level," is how they described the government's response to the unprecedented floods.

If the government had paid heed to the warning by the metereological department, the central water resources ministry and released the water from Srisailam downstream when the reservoir levels were at 882 ft, there would have been some cushion in the reservoir and the impact could have been reduced. The central agencies issued the warning on September 30 but the government failed in anticipating the severity.

Talking to media after the all party meeting, TDP leader and former irrigation minister Kadiam Srihari said that the chief minister pressed the panic button on Friday night and said that the continued heavy inflows into Srisailam would maroon Kurnool town by Saturday morning causing panic in the town. Apparently, he has been misled by the officials. The flood in Kurnool was due to heavy releases from Tungabhadra river and not Srisailam. Despite release of a record 25 lakh cusecs of water from Srisailam, the water levels in Kurnool town receded by 4 feet."

Further, the CPI and CPM blamed the irrigation department for poor maintenance of the Sunkesula Barrage gates and delay in modernisation and repairs of Handri-Neeva Canal. They said the administration due to improper planning failed to even provide food packets and drinking water to the marooned people. They suggested district level all party committees to monitor distribution of relief material.

The opposition also suggested that the government should take proper care and see that once the water recedes, there are no fresh casualities due to collapse of walls and houses and asked the chief minister to ensure that proper and effective steps were taken to prevent spread of epidemics. They further demanded that 30 kg of rice, five litres of kerosene and clothes be distributed to the effected people in Kurnool, Mahbubnagar and Krishna districts.

Meanwhile, the state witnessed unprecendented floods as it lacks a proper disaster management programme, averred M Shashidhar Reddy, member National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). Reddy said that every state has been advised to keep a Special Disaster Management Force in place to meet any such eventualities but Andhra Pradesh has not complied. He told TOI that the NDMA has a special team drawn from police and other wings to take up rescue operations during natural calamaties. At least now, the government should focus on such issues and also have contingency plans in place to meet any eventuality, he said. Knee-jerk reactions do not help in effective handling of emergencies like the one faced on Friday. He said even the men and material sent by the NDMA could not be pressed into service on Friday due to logistic problems.

Meanwhile, irrigation expert C L N Shastri said that disaster management needs advance planning. He said the state has the ability to handle any kind of crisis and irrigation officials who can handle any kind of inflows and take up water management. Between 1964-2005 the irrigation officials had shown exemplary performance in water management even when the inflows were over 9 lakh cusecs. But this time, it appears the authorities were unprepared, he observed.