VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday shot off another letter to the Centre requesting the latter to declare Titli cyclone as a national calamity. He also sought the immediate release of Rs 1,200 crore as interim relief and urged the Centre to send a team to assess the damages occurred due to the cyclone.As there was no response from the Centre to his letters addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 13 and Home Minister Rajnath Singh on October 15 and letter to Home Secretary on October 14, Naidu wrote another letter to the Centre.
In the letter, he said even though there is a large-scale damage in the State due to Titli and his repeated appeals for release of interim relief, there was no response and no Central team was deputed so far to take stock of the situation in cyclone-affected areas. He said the State government had already spent a huge amount of money for undertaking rescue, relief and restoration operations and stressed the need for immediate intervention of the Centre by of way releasing interim relief.
Titli left devastation and people in Srikakulam district are still left in a daze, staring at a bleak future. Public and private properties in 1,802 villages in both Srikakulam and Vizianagaram districts were severely damaged and loss of life stood at 16. Till date, power connectivity was restored in 1,392 out of the 1,802 affected villages. The rest of the villages will get power by October 22 and by October 25, power supply to agriculture connections will be restored, the CM said.
According to him, 50,000 houses were damaged in the cyclone. Agriculture crop in 1.65 lakh hectares and horticulture crop in 40,000 hectares were destroyed.Road network in 625 kms sustained damage.
The CM explained that he along with 15 Cabinet colleagues camped in the cyclone-affected areas for several days to monitor relief works. Explaining briefly the relief works taken in last 10 days, he said the losses sustained so far are estimated to be `3,435.29 crore.