Prime minister Manmohan Singh has announced an immediate central assistance of Rs 1,000 crore for undertaking relief works in the wake of the destruction caused by the Phailin cyclone and heavy rains in the state.
He made this announcement when chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy met him in Delhi on Saturday and sought Rs 6,510.39 crore relief as per NDRF norms and an emergency advance of Rs 1,000 crore. When Singh announced an immediate sanction of Rs 1,000 crore, Reddy promptly thanked him for the gesture.
The prime minister also assured the chief minister of releasing Rs 1,145 crore central assistance due to the state since 2009 towards drought and cyclone relief already sanctioned but not released. Singh assured Reddy of releasing this amount immediately after looking into the details.
Deputy chief minister Damodar Rajanarasimha, Union ministers Pallam Raju, K Chiranjeevi and Panabaka Lakshmi, PCC president and transport minister Botcha Satyanarayana, state ministers K Parthasarathi, Ganta Srinivasa Rao and Sailajanath, MPs Sai Pratap, Ananta Venkatrami Reddy and KVP Ramachandra Rao, and AICC general secretary and AICC general secretary in charge of AP Congress affairs Digvijay Singh were among those who accompanied the chief minister on his visit to the prime minister.
The chief minister told the prime minister that Phailin cyclone, followed by heavy rains and floods, lashed the state between October 10 and 13. The cyclone wreaked havoc in Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam districts.
Reddy also sought reimbursement of Rs 1,145.46 crore, which had been deducted from the financial assistance sanctioned by the high-level committee, while releasing NDRF between 2009-10 to 2012-13.
The chief minister said crops in over 72.72 lakh hectares of land had been damaged since 2010 due to Laila, Jal, Thane, Nilam and Phailin cyclones. The state government had waived the entire interest burden on crop loans of all affected farmers, he said and sought total waiver of crop loans to the farmers affected by the repeated calamities. He also sought establishment of more procurement centres by Food Corporation of India and the Cotton Corporation of India to procure discoloured paddy, cotton and other crops.
The chief minister listed out sector-wise damage caused by Phailin cyclone and the heavy rains that lashed the state from October 21 to 27.
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