Title - Flood-hit people seek supply of drinking water

Efforts are on to restore supply immediately, says official Parvathamma of Kanapaka has criticised the district administration for not able to supply drinking water to people living in knee-deep water for the last couple of days. Lakshmi, another woman of the same area, said they were forced to walk to the nearest overhead tank at Cantonment, a distance of about 2 km from their home to fetch a pot of water.In fact, the storage tank too has inadequate water because infiltration wells were submerged. People of Thotapalem, VUDA-I, Santoshnagar, Kanapaka, Rajiv Nagar Colony and Butchenna Konderu in the town have been facing similar problem.Transport Minister Botcha Satyanarayana, during his review meeting on the flood situation on Sunday, asked municipal officials of Salur, Bobbili, and Vizianagaram to supply drinking water through tankers to the people in marooned colonies. The situation is still grave in Rajiv Nagar and Butchenna Koneru in the town, low-lying areas, where water is yet to recede. The administration made arrangements to pump out the water. Collector M. Veerabrahmaiah has asked rain-hit people to drink water from bore wells. Efforts are on to restore water supply immediately, said an official of the municipality.The Collector put the loss of crops at over Rs. 20 crore. He said standing crops such as sugarcane, maize, paddy, cotton and pulses were damaged in an extent of 15,000 hectares.

In all 25 minor irrigation tanks, including Kotha Cheruvu at Boddam in Vepada mandal and Mogadaarigedda at Kurmavaram in L. Kota mandal, were breached. He asked the irrigation officials to plug the breaches immediately.

The Collector, who inspected the railway track work on Visakhapatnam-Kirandole line at Boddvara in S. Kota mandal this morning, said that it would be restored for traffic in the next 48 hours.

The work was going on at full swing. The track was washed away by flood waters on Saturday night. He asked S. Kota tehsildar to help railways carry gravel from nearby hills for track restoration work.