VIJAYAWADA: Moved by the devastating damage caused by the floods in Vijayawada city, the state govt has decided to take up comprehensive enumeration of losses to provide relief to the flood victims. The state govt is contemplating extending a massive level of relief after completion of the enumeration. The state govt has appointed 16 IAS officers to monitor the enumeration spreading over 32 municipal divisions in Vijayawada city.Speaking to the media on Saturday, special chief secretary (revenue, relief and disaster management), RP Sisodia said that Vijayawada city and its surroundings have recorded the heaviest rain in 50 years, prompting the govt to launch large-scale relief and rescue operations. “As many as 149 ward secretariats falling in 32 municipal wards in the Vijayawada city witnessed heavy water logging as the Krishna and Budameru rivulet started overflowing with heavy inflows. Almost more than 50% area of Vijayawada City and some of the villages in the rural mandal have been inundated and marooned. Due to Heavy Rains in hill areas rocks falls have also occurred and some people lost their lives. During this calamity estimated 2,31,735 households and population 6,38,969 are affected,” said Sisodia.
Keeping in view of the extent of damage, govt has prescribed various scales of relief for different types of damages/ losses. He said that a detailed exercise by a team of officers at field level will be taken up from Monday to identify and enumerate the quantum of loss among the affected population/ households/ cattle loss. He said that the enumeration will cover the individual families and commercial establishment affected by flood including loss of clothing and utensils/house-hold goods for families, whose houseshave been washed away/fully damaged/severely inundated for more than two days due to a natural calamity. The teams will also look into the need of gratuitous relief for families’ whose livelihood is seriously affected. They will examine whether replacement of fully damaged pushcart, rikshaw, auto rikshaw is needed. They will enumerate fully damaged or partially destroyed houses and severely damaged houses pucca house and kutcha house and loss of livestock, cattle shed attached with house, damage of main functional tools/equipment of handicrafts /handlooms belonging to professional artisans, loss of raw material /goods in process/ finished goods of professional artisans.
Sisodia said that one IAS officer will be appointed for every two divisions with a total of 16 officers. He said that one special officer from district administration for each ward with a total of 32. He explained that one Tahsildar will be appointed as ward/village secretariat supervisory officer for each secretariats with a total of 149. “Every ward/village secretariat shall constitute 10 enumeration teams. Each enumeration team will be constituted by comprising of Deputy tahsildar/revenue inspector, ward secretariat employees and volunteer except ANM and Mahila Police.
