The Telangana government has requested the Centre to release ₹1,350 crore as immediate assistance for taking up relief and rehabilitation works in the areas affected by the incessant rain in the last couple of days.
Of this, ₹600 crore is proposed as assistance for farmers and ₹750 crore will be spent on relief and rehabilitation works in the GHMC area. Preliminary estimates put the losses incurred on account of the deluge at around ₹5,000 crore and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking immediate release of ₹1,350 crore.
The letter followed a high-level meeting convened by the Chief Minister to review the situation arising out of the recent rain. The rain/flood resulted in 50 deaths, including 11 in the GHMC area, and crops in over 7.35 lakh acres were submerged.
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The loss to farmers would be in excess of ₹2,000 crore even if half of the crops in the areas under submergence were damaged. The GHMC area recorded 31 cm rain on a single day for the first time after 1916, resulting in inundation of several areas, particularly those adjoining the tanks that reached their full levels.
Water entered the cellars of apartments as 20,540 houses in 144 colonies in 72 areas received heavy rain, affecting 35,000 families. L. B. Nagar, Charminar, Secunderabad and Khairatabad zones bore the brunt with 14 houses getting damaged fully and 65 suffering partial damage.
Roads suffered damage in 445 places and highways were affected in six places while the government had set up relief camps in 72 places. The impact of the rain was also felt in 30 other cities across the State, which reported damage to roads and other infrastructure. The power establishment, on its part, reported that water entered into nine sub-stations under the TS Transco and another 17 sub-stations under the power distribution companies.
With uprooting of pools and damages to electrical lines in different places, the department suffered an estimated ₹5 crore losses even as works had been taken up on war footing to restore power supply in the affected areas where works had been completed.
According to official estimates, 101 tanks suffered breaches and several other damages were also reported resulting in loss of ₹50 crore to the Water Resources Department while the Panchayat Raj Department reported close to ₹300 crore losses on account of breaches to roads and damage suffered by other infrastructure maintained by the department. The losses suffered by the Roads and Buildings Department were estimated at ₹184 crore and another ₹11 crore were on account of the damage to the national highways.
