Vijayawada: TD MPs Kesineni Srinivas and Konakalla Narayana on Tuesday met Union home minister Rajnath Singh who is on a visit to the state, at the Gannavaram airport.
The MPs submitted a memorandum from Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to the visiting Union minister on the implementation of provisions of AP Reorganisation Act and the Centre’s assistance to the tune of '3345 crore to compensate the loss caused by Cyclone Titli.
In the letter, Mr Naidu told Mr Singh that more than two lakh families are in distress in the two districts of Srikakulam and Vizianagaram but so far no one from the Centre has visited the cyclone-hit areas.
The Chief Minister requested the Centre to depute a high-level delegation to take stock of the situation.
Mr Naidu pointed out that AP had earlier suffered a similar severe Cyclone Hudhud in 2014. “The Prime Minister promised to release '1,000 crore but only '552 crore was released. The state government spent '926 crore from its own Budget to provide necessary relief to the affected population. I’m submitting a copy of the latest preliminary damage report as on October 15, with a request to release interim relief of Rs 1,200 crore to the state to continue relief measures and to take up restoration of infrastructure to bring them to normal stage in these two affected districts," Mr Naidu said in the letter.
He also said that relief operations are going on a war footing. So far, the state government had spent Rs 500 crore. The state government requires immediate assistance from Central government to continue the relief operations, he said.
