A team of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) leaders led by Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Bhatti Vikramarka met Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan at the Raj Bhavan on Tuesday and briefed her on the losses and suffering caused by heavy rains across the State.
The delegation included AICC Secretary and Manthani MLA Sridhar Babu, Congress working presidents Mahesh Kumar Goud and Anjan Kumar Yadav, former Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah, and PCC senior vice president Mallu Ravi. They requested the Governor to see that the flood victims get compensation from the government.
“We have briefed the Governor about the loss of life, crops and property due to floods caused by heavy rains in the State and presented details of the same. The government has utterly failed to take precautionary measures to protect people from this natural disaster. Even though the officials of the Meteorological Department had issued warnings of heavy rains, the State government machinery was aloof and did not conduct appropriate reviews on time,” said Mr. Vikramarka adding that the government had shown negligence in not releasing funds for the annual maintenance of major, medium and minor irrigation projects resulted in flooding causing immeasurable suffering to the people.
“The construction of Kaleshwaram and Sitarama projects in an unscientific manner has resulted in submergence of numerous tribal settlements. If the check dams built on the Munneru and Kinnerasani rivers had been scientifically designed and constructed by the engineering authorities, damage to this extent would not have occurred,” he opined.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had turned a deaf ear to Congress MLAs Sitakka, Podem Veerayya and Duddilla Sridhar Babu’s requests to send rescue teams as there was a threat of submergence to the tribal agency areas of Bhadrachalam to Adilabad due to flooding of the river Godavari, the CLP leader said and wondered why the Chief Minister was not visiting flood-hit areas.
On the announcement of merger of RTC employees into the Government, Mr Vikramarka termed it a victory of the Congress that had already announced the merger after coming to power. Answering a question, Mr. Vikramarka said that the Congress would oppose selling of RTC assets tooth and nail.
