Jagan to tour flood-hit areas: Botsa

Hyderabad, Nov 19: Demanding the TDP government to take up immediate relief and rehabilitation measures in the three southern districts battered by heavy torrential rains, YSR Congress has said that the party president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy would tour the affected areas in a couple of days. "The State Government has miserably failed in handling the situation as it did not take any preventive measures to carry out the relief operations despite the weather forecast and people of Nellore, Chittoor and YSR Kadapa districts were badly affected," YSRCP's senior leader Botsa Satyanarayana told media here today. There were no instructions from the Government to carry out the rescue, relief and rehabilitation programmes in the three districts though the State has a standard format. Evacuating the people in low lying areas and storing essential commodities for distribution after gauging the intensity of the calamity were not carried out, he said. To instill confidence among the people, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy would tour the three districts and the date would be finalized soon, he said. "The State has been reeling under severe drought and the State, which has declared 196 mandals as affected areas and assured to consider 170 more, has never sent a report to the Centre. The Union Minister Chudary Birender Singh has said that there was no report on drought from the State. "This shows the indifference of the state and its lopsided policies. The affected people in the Hudhud Cyclone did not get the relief even now and we demand that the State should take relief operations in the rain battered districts immediately along West Godavari which was also affected and secure the drought relief the from Centre," he said.