Telangana Loses Rs. 2740 Crores To September Rains

The State government today estimated the loss faced by Telangana due to the recent heavy rains and floods lashed it during the third week of September to be Rs. 2,740 crores, and apprised the Centre on the same.

Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma held a high-level meeting with an interministerial Central team that arrived here to assess the actual crop loss, on November 13 and 14, at the Haritha Plaza, and sought immediate release of funds after the assessment.

Sharma, while giving a presentation on losses, informed the team that heavy rains between September 21 and 27 had caused a lot of damage to roads, transformers, crops, houses and other infrastructure and resulted in a total loss of Rs. 2,740 crores to the Municipal Administration, Rs. 192.77 crores to Agriculture, Rs. 112 crores to irrigation, Rs. 290 crores to Panchayat Raj and other losses. The CS urged the Centre to provide adequate financial assistance to address the problems.

Dilip Kumar, Joint Secretary of the Union Home Department, who led the team, promised that they would ask the Centre to provide adequate financial assistance if the estimates were right. The team left for the Kamareddy, Nizamabad, Sangareddy, Karimnagar and Siddipet districts and will return to Hyderabad to assess the loss.

Besides Dilip Kumar, the Central team comprised of Rural Development Commissioner Jagdish Kumar, Finance Director R B Kaul, Oil Seeds Director S K Kolhatkar, water resources engineer O R K Reddy and Roads, Transport and Highways regional officer A Krishna Prasad along with State officials.