Guntur and Krishna Districts

1. Background

The Krishna River, with tributaries Tungabhadra and Handriniva, is one of the two major perennial sources serving more than 60% of the irrigation necessities of Andhra Pradesh State. This River has suddenly rose to a highest level after 103 years duration, due to the cyclonic depression and continuous down-pour in the catchment areas and resulting in worst floods devastating hundreds of villages in five Districts of Andhra Pradesh – Kurnool, Mahaboobnagar, Krishna, Guntur and Nalgonda.

While the end of South-west monsoon on account of depression in the Sea has resulted in the down-pour of rains in upper catchment areas of Krishna River in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh after the severe drought situation. This has resulted in the inflow of water in Krishna River by 2.5 times to the normal capacity, which was never in the history. Districts affected very badly were Kurnool and Mahaboobnagar while other three Districts are being affected with inevitable floods due to the release of water from the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam and Prakasam Barrage of Vijayawada to safeguard the villages of upper stream.

Maximum capacity that Prakasam Barrage held was 0.985 million cusecs in the last 100 years while its holding capacity is 1.1 million cusecs. Now, it is expected to cross 2.4 million cusecs either this evening or in a day or two to save the villages in the upper stream. But it is affecting very badly all the habitations from Prakasam Barrage to Bay of Bengal. Major hydel power stations of Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar were inundated and power supply in the State is being disrupted.

The massive flood in the River Krishna wrecked havoc in Krishna, Guntur and Nalgonda Districts as enormous quantities of water were released from Nagarnjuna Sagar Dam and Vijayawada Prakasam Barrage inundating about 400 villages including all island habitations and rendering over 400,000 people homeless. (Krishna inundates 400 villages in 3 Districts in The Hindu English Daily, Monday, the 5th October 09)

1,830,165 people have been affected by flooding in 5 Districts of Andhra Pradesh. 383,716 persons evacuated. 227 Relief Camps organised. 550 army men, 997 swimmers, 254 boats, 6 helicopters deployed. (Flood fury in Deccan Chronicle English Daily, Sunday, the 4th October 09)

At least 150 people have died and several lakhs rendered homeless. The army, airforce and the Navy have been called in to assist the two State Governments, but people in many people in many places hit by floods are yet to get relief. (Unprecedented havoc in The Hindu English Daily, Monday, the 5th October 09).

2. Present Status

As on now, over 500 villages are affected with floods in all the 5 Districts. All these villages have water to a depth of 2 to 15 feet. Water is flowing on the top of all the bridges in the following districts. Power supply is disrupted in many of the affected villages. Safe water is the problem in all the villages and diseases are spreading due to the death of livestock and insanitary conditions. On the other side, villagers refuse to go to Relief Camps as they are frightened about the loss of assets.

It is likely the number of villages marooned and flood victims might increase day by day.

3. Required Support

First, immediate requirement is to provide the relief packets with the following items costing 1,500 INR each (32 US$ or 23 Euro):

• Clothes (1 pair for male, 1 pair for female & 2 blankets)
• Utensils
• Rice 10 kgs
• Red Gram 1 kg
• Oil 0.5 kg
• Tamarind 0.5 kg

Other support needed immediately is the medical assistance as follows:

• Getting the support of local doctors including the Government officials, the medicines and logistics have to be organised. It will cost around 25,000 INR (520 US$ or 380 Euro) catering around 1,000 people in one village.
• To provide safe water in the problematic areas, the viable solution could be the mobile water treatment plant with Ultra violet technique so that bacterial contamination can be controlled and drinking water provided. In order to establish one mobile unit, it may cost around 500,000 INR (10,500 US$ or 7,500 Euro) with the plant of 1,000 Litres per hour including the four-wheel auto while the running cost would be extra.

However, the rehabilitation measures have to be planned little later after the water recedes in the problematic villages.

Place: Chilakaluripet

Date : 5th October 2009

J Ranga Rao

Operational Director, ASSIST