Raghavulu sees political blunders for flood damage

Hyderabad, Oct 8 :

 The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday felt that flood havoc in the State is caused primarily due to some political blunders committed by the ruling party. The state secretary of the CPM, Mr B V Raghavulu, is of the opinion that the delay in taking certain decisions at crucial time had cost the State dearly. Justifying his argument, Mr Raghavulu said that even after noticing heavy inflows into the Srisailam reservoir, the officials and the engineers did not let out the water who marooned the low-lying areas in Kurnool. “Though there was provision for storage of water in the reservoirs downstream of Srisailam, the officials have miserably failed to release the surplus inflows only with a view to utilising the surplus water for power generation,” he said adding that this has caused the heavy floods in the area.  Despite warnings of flooding of the area if the waters from Srisailam reservoir are not let out into Nagarjuna Sagar and Somasila, the officials totally neglected the warning signals, he observed.

The CPM leader wanted to know the reasons for immediate shutting down of the sluice gates at Srisailam within minutes of lifting them. “Why the officials, who had earlier decided to let out the inflows, shut down the sluice gates within a few hours,” he asked. Despite having clear signals of the heavy inflows and also possible flooding of the area, the State Government had utterly failed to take preventive measures. “If preventive steps had been taken, the damage would have been avoided,” Mr Raghavulu remarked. The officials and the Irrigation engineers have become lethargic and this has cost the State very dear, he added.