Although the minister said that the current crisis in the city is due to the weather, he acknowledged that the invasion of lakes and river beds had precipitated the crisis.
Thirty-three people died, three are missing and more than 30,000 people were evacuated due to the unprecedented rains that hit Hyderabad last week, Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao told media on Monday. Opposing allegations that the government has no data on the deceased, KTR said they have identified the 33 people who died in the rain-related incident and provided an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh each to 29 families. .
KTR said that the government has appointed a total of 80 special officers and that they were engaged in a three-phase disaster management plan to minimize the number of deaths in the city. The Meteorology department issued a heavy rain warning through Thursday for Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana. The minister said the government is on high alert and that they have already alerted the Indian army and the National Disaster Response Force to be on alert.
KTR said the 80 senior officers will participate in pre-disaster, disaster response and relief and rehabilitation activities in Hyderabad and other adjacent areas, where authorities anticipate flooding. Emphasizing that the main goal of the government is to minimize casualties, he said that the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has suspended all its activities for the next few days and has only responsibility for disaster management.
Addressing the media, KTR asked all residents living in the low-lying areas to immediately leave their homes and move to government shelters. “The shelters have food, drinking water, toilets, medical camps and masks,” he said. COVID-19 tests are being carried out in the camps, the minister announced.
KTR said that of the 37,000 ration kits, they have already distributed 18,000 ration kits worth Rs 2,000 each. “These kits have everything, including powdered tea,” he said.
Unprecedented rains
Although KTR said the current crisis in the city was due to the weather and a once-in-a-century rainfall, it acknowledged that invasions in lakes and along river beds had also precipitated the crisis. “We have all the usurpation reports and satellite photos of usurpations. However, our current focus is rescuing people. We will discuss the invasions later. These problems cannot be tackled overnight, ”he said.
Monetary losses incurred
Due to heavy rains, Hyderabad has suffered an estimated loss of Rs 670 crore, it said. To provide food, sanitation and relief camps, the government has already spent 45 million rupees and another 60 million rupees to restore electricity, water pipes, etc., he added.
The minister said they expect monetary help from the Union government. Prime Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had previously estimated a loss of Rs 5,000 crore in the state and sought immediate assistance of Rs 1,350 crore from the Union government.
At GHMC, 80 neighborhoods and 54 apartment complexes are flooded and 164 electrical transformers have yet to be repaired, KTR said. The southern part of the city, Charminar and LB Nagar, were the worst affected areas, he said.
As part of disaster management, 54 weak structures have been demolished in the last week, the minister said. “Our goal is to save lives. In some incidents, we had to forcibly evacuate people living in low-lying areas because they refused, ”he said.
As the GHMC has only 18 ships, the Chief Secretary has requested assistance from the neighboring states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, which have agreed to provide 15 ships each. The minister also thanked Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, K Edapaddi Palaniswami, who announced a fund of 10 million rupees and thousands of blankets as relief for the state.
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