NEW DELHI: More than 28,000 people have been moved to safer locations from rain and flood-affected areas of Chennai and adjoining areas and tonnes of relief material has been dispatched to Tamil Nadu, the Centre today said.
27 truck loads of ready-to-eat meals, four lakh bottles of drinking water and other essential food items have also been sent to the state.
A meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) was held here under the chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha to review the flood situation in the state and take stock of the relief measures being done by multiple agencies like NDRF and army.
An official statement said the situation is improving as Chennai did not experience heavy rainfall since yesterday and the flood waters were receding.
"National Disaster Response Force and armed forces sent by the government of India have rescued more than 28,000 persons.
As the need for rescue has come down, the 50 NDRF teams and 13 army columns deployed are now more pressed into relief services rather than rescue," it said.
It added that road connectivity in the state has been restored and city bus services have begun functioning.
"Power supply has been restored to more than 90 per cent of the city. Railways continue to operate special intra-city and outstation services and normal services are expected to begin from Monday," it said.
NCMC was also told by officials participating in the meeting that the restoration of Chennai airport will be completed in a day or two.
"Meanwhile, the operation of the civilian flights from the Naval air Base in Arakkonam continues," it said.
A Home Ministry spokesperson said as telecom services are not fully functional in the affected areas, Sinha directed that necessary steps should be taken to restore the same at the earliest.
"Tamil Nadu government will hold a meeting with telecom service providers to sort out the issues. To make petroleum products available, the Ministry of Petroleum will facilitate the same," it said. While the southern metropolis was "struggling to return to normalcy", in many areas, telephone landline services have been restored even as mobile services also picked up pace.