From last few days I am not at peace….I am quite disturbed when I read and saw the pictures of devastating floods in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra….My tranquility has been disturbed specially when I came to know that Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh has been collapsed and destroyed completely……I have special emotional bondage with the Guntur…..As an IRS probationer, Government of India sent me for a ten days sensitization programme i.e. ‘Village visit’ in 75,Tyrralu village of District Guntur…..We went by Bus….I saw the beauty and prosperous landscape of the country side of Andhra Pradesh….We were kindly received by the DM and SP of the District….It was really a nice feeling on the first encounter of the district head quarter and its officials after becoming a bureaucrat….All was well organized…..along with the senior officials, Block development officer [BDO] and Panchayat secretary were present who took us to the 75,Tyrralu village….It was a well developed, literate, peaceful, clean and properly sanitized , fortunate to have piped water supply and lift irrigation, English medium residential school and 108 emergency medical service village along with [of course] some prevailing general problems which almost all the villages of India have e.g. caste discrimination, separation of hamlets of SC and ST population form main village, relative deprivation, high caste domination ,etc….The Panchayat secretary Mr Srinivasn and BDO were very co-operative….We took shelter in the Panchayat Bhavan having toilets, electricity connection and 24*7 water supply with very less mosquito menace….All in all, I found the village as an Ideal village [Pictures of this village can be seen in previous blog postings] .
Today, due to flood, all is lost…I don’t know the real situation but can easily guess the plight of the villagers there….since there was no nearby upland, I am doubtful about the survival of human and cattle resources of this village .….I am doubtful about the future of the lonely old lady living in ST colony whose source of income was weaving of mats from locally available raw material….I am doubtful about the future of numerous kids in ST colony who were fighting with each other to stand in the front row and asked me several times to take their photographs from my digital camera…..My heart is coming out…..
When I closed my eyes….all the incidences vividly moves just like a movie…..I paused to re look about the disaster management machinery of our country…Is it efficient, capable and sufficient for the disaster of this magnitude and the vast size of mother India….I doubt….though we have, National disaster management authority at place with all pomp and show….but whether it is delivering at this crucial juncture….I think We need to re-assess, re-evaluate and critically analyse the efficacy of the system in place…We need to have disaster mitigation as well as disaster response fund and strategy at macro, meso and micro levels for the quick response at the time of crisis….Though ,we cannot make country disaster proof but definitely We can chalk out some strategy, plans and programmes to minimize the colossal lose to men and material…..With the proper co-ordination, synergy among all the stake holders and extensive usage of IT, satellites data and regional planning, we can make the life of common people safer and happy.
I hope the people of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra will come out very soon from the bad memories of today and keep on moving for a brighter and prosperous future….Besides, I express my feelings to the people of Indonesia and Philippines and Samoa Island[US] who have suffered a severe jolt from the cruel hands of geo-morphological phenomena i.e. Earthquake and Tsunami very recently…..keep blogging…..
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Hi, nice post. It is indeed a great tragedy. Only a month back people were crying for rains and the A.P government declared some of the districts as 'drought-hit'. After one month we have this situation. I hope the government learns something from this and takes steps to face these kind of floods in a better way in future.
But, there is a correction - It's not Guntur district which was effected most because of these floods, it is 'Kurnool' district. Of course, people from few villages in guntur district (which are in the krishna delta area) did suffer (they had to vacate the villages & relocate to safer places), but there were no major incidents in Guntur as the govt. had enough time to take precautionary steps. So there is no loss of life in Guntur and krishna districts. Kurnool & Mahbubnagar districts were worst hit because of these floods, mainly kurnool and Manthraalayam. The whole kurnool town (which has a population of 3lakhs+) was submerged under 10 feet water for 36 hours. Nobody is sure about how many lives are lost. I just hope most of the people managed to relocate to safer places in time.
--Srinivas
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