The CM said district officials, heads of departments and every government employee would be on working on the field on the relief and rehabilitation works.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu held a review meeting on the rescue and relief measures being undertaken for those affected by Cyclone Hudhud, with the heads of various departments at Secretariat today.
The Chief Minister said that district officials, heads of departments and every government employee would be on working on the field on the relief, restoration and rehabilitation works.
The Chief Minister also said that officials needed to be extremely careful in estimating the damages to property, crops and houses, and loss of human and animal life if any.
He said that he would jump into action immediately and would not rest until the last person was enumerated.
He said that the Andhra Pradesh government, for the first time in India, was using space technology with the help of ISRO and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), in disaster management.
The government with the help of the NRSC had also launched an Android app for a crowdsourcing project where people could upload photos from their smartphones.
NRSC said that over 3,000 downloads of app were recorded.
The Chief Minister directed the NRSC to use GIS, GPS and remote sensing technologies to identify all damage and upload it onto the satellite through geo-tagging. This would enable the government to have the data on all damages on the map.
He added that four satellites had been engaged to monitor the Cyclone - RI Sat1, RISat2, Radar Sat and Resource Sat2.
He also urged officials to use Facebook, Twitter and Google to spread the message. The Andhra Pradesh government had created a Facebook page called AP Disaster Management which Facebook and Google had supported within a hour of the page's launch. The government had also created #HudhudAP to reach out to people and get information from them on Twitter and Facebook. It was also using Whatsapp extensively.
He added that crop loss pictures, and pictures of damaged roads, bridges, reservoirs and tanks and railway lines would be made available through satellite technology by ISRO.
The Chief Minister said that he had also written to the Prime Minister, asking the Centre to declare Cyclone Hudhud a national calamity. He had also asked the Centre for an adhoc relief package of Rs 2,000 crores.
Naidu said that the Central Cabinet secretary appreciated the AP government's efforts in using technology for disaster management.
However, he asked officials to integrate the data from all sources. This would then be an example for the country if it went off smoothly, he said. This data will be available for all on the CM dashboard from tomorrow.
The CM said that the government was able to reduce the loss of life due to the precautionary measures taken. However, he directed officials to take up restoration works for power poles, transformers, railway lines, tanks and reservoirs on a war-footing from tomorrow.
He directed Energy Principal Secretary Ajay Jain to ensure that broken and fallen power lines and poles were restored immediately.
The Chief Minister also said that food and water should reach the evacuated victims at the relief camps well in time.
The Chief Minister directed Principal Secretary (Medical and Health) L V Subramanyam to ensure that medicines were stocked up at relief camps, and health camps were set up.
He said that the damages to the victims and their families should be enumerated liberally based on their losses, and they should be paid accordingly.
Ministers Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, Siddha Raghava Rao and Kamineni Srinivas, Chief Secretary I Y R Krishna Rao, Advisor (Communications) Dr Parakala Prabhakar, Disaster Management Commissioner Sukumar, Principal Secretaries Giridhar, Ajay Sawhney and Sai Prasad, and DGP Ramudu were present at the meeting. (INN)