VISAKHAPATNAM: Too many cooks spoil the broth. The age old saying proved right once again as the entire state administration descended on Visakhapatnam to carry out the Hudhud relief operations. Due to the presence of the entire Cabinet and top officials in the city it has become tough for the district authorities to both look after their bosses and carry out cyclone relief.
Lack of coordination between departments and too many officials from various districts are only disturbing the relief operations. Though the chief minister himself is sitting at the collectorate and reviewing the operations, by involving 20 ministers and 40 IAS officials, the relief works are not to the people’s expectations. As per the chief minister’s directions, over 1,000 officials and employees of various departments from other districts, including Prakasam,
Guntur, Krishna, Kurnool and Anantapur, arrived in Visakhapatnam, besides another 1,000 employees and engineering officials of the APEPDCL.
Instead of attending to relief works, local officials are struggling to provide accommodation and vehicles to officials from the other districts.
Meanwhile, ministers, MPs and their followers also arrived in big numbers and asking the officials to provide vehicles, accommodations etc. The district administration led by collector and the joint collector are mainly attending to protocol and providing information to the officials of the Chief Minister’s Office. The lengthy and late night review meetings are also disturbing relief operations. on Monday night, Chandrababu Naidu, after a two-hour meeting, deputed 17 Cabinet colleagues to monitor the relief works from Tuesday onwards. The chief minister directed the ministers to take immediate decisions to provide on the spot help to Hudhud victims. Some of the ministers do not have any clue to are attending relief operations.
“Yes, it is true, the relief work is limping. Road clearance is also not completed. I am not saying the chief minister’s direct involvement is wrong, but it would be better to give a free hand to the district officials to handle the relief works. In fact, we do not have even preliminary reports from villages till now.
The entire district administration is now working under the CMO. The collector and joint collector are just providing information to them. There is no role for local ministers and MLAs too,” a senior official who arrived from Hyderabad said.
According to sources, minister for HRD Ganta Srinivasa Rao and minister for Panchayat Raj Ayyannapatrudu are expressing dissent over the developments. District officials are unable to attend to ground work for want of clarity.
No Supplies
The chief minister has announced free distribution of 25 kg rice, 1 kg dal and kerosene etc to the affected families from Tuesday onwards. However, the civil supplies officials could not get the same from their godowns. MLA Velagapudi Ramakrishna Babu and P Vishnukumar Raju expressed their anger at the civil supplies department.
Both the MLAs had heated arguments with the officials at the collectorate. Even the minister for civil supplies Paritala Sunitha was around when the argument took place, but did not involve in the issue.
The transport department is also complaining about the arrival of too many officials and VIPs. Instead of providing vehicles for relief operations, the officials are providing transportation to the VIPs.
The military is ready to render their services, but there is no guidance to them.
Everybody is saying food and water are arriving from other districts, but our police personnel do not have even a single bottle of water. There is no drinking water for officials even in the collectorate, he said.