Declare floods in AP as natural calamity: CPI

Hyderabad, Aug 20 (UNI) The state unit of CPI today demanded the Centre to declare the recent floods in Andhra Pradesh as natural calamity and provide a grant of Rs 1,000 crore towards relief, rehabilitation and other measures.

A delegation of the leaders including state secretary K Narayana, and Secretariat member K Ramakrishna met the Central team which visited the flood-affected areas and submitted a memorandum.

They suggested to take measures for strengthening the embankment on river Godavari from Saropoaka to Kinnerasani, near Bhadrachalam and construction of pucca houses for the affected.

They said, as per the preliminary estimates, 40 lakh people in about 6000 villages bore the brunt of floods with the loss of crops in about 3,00,000 hectares and the damage of 20,000 houses completely and 50,000 partially.

Apart from the measures taken by the state government, the party demanded a compensation of Rs two lakh as ex gratia and Rs 50,000 for the seriously injured and Rs 10,000 for those with minor injuries.

Other recommendations included measures for reclamation of the land swamped by sand, reconstruction of government offices and repairs to breaches, canals and roads.

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