Relief takes back seat as serving VIPs comes first

VISAKHAPATNAM: Too many cooks spoil the broth. The age-old saying proved right once again as the entire state administration descended on Visakhapatnam for Hudhud relief operations.

The presence of the entire Cabinet and top officials in the city put the district administration in a tizzy as they had to both look after their bosses and carry out cyclone relief.

Though CM Chandrababu Naidu himself is at the Collectorate reviewing the operations, by involving 20 ministers and 40 IAS officials, the relief works are not to the people's expectations.

As per his directions, over 1,000 officials and employees of various departments from other districts, including Prakasam, Guntur, Krishna, Kurnool and Anantapur, arrived in Visakhapatnam, besides another 1,000 employees and engineering officials of the Andhra Pradesh Eastern Power Distribution Company.

Instead of attending to relief works, local officials are struggling to provide accommodation and vehicles to officials from other districts. Ministers, MPs and their followers have arrived in big numbers and are asking for vehicles and accommodation.The district administration led by the Collector and Joint Collector are mainly attending to protocol and providing information to the officials of the CMO.

The lengthy and late night review meetings are also disturbing relief operations. After a two-hour meeting on Monday night, Naidu deputed 17 Cabinet colleagues to monitor the relief works from Tuesday onwards and asked them to take decisions on the spot. Some of them, however, were clueless about relief operations.

'Yes, it is true, the relief work is limping. Road clearance is also not completed. I am not saying the Chief Minister's direct involvement is wrong, but it would be better to give a free hand to the district officials to handle the relief works. In fact, we do not have even preliminary reports from villages till now.

The entire district administration is now working under the Chief Minister's Office. The Collector and Joint Collector are just providing information to them. There is no role for local ministers and MLAs too,' a senior official who arrived from Hyderabad said.

HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao and Panchayat Raj Minister Ayyannapatrudu expressed dissent over the developments. The district officials are unable to attend to ground work for want of clarity.

No Supplies

The Chief Minister has announced free distribution of 25 kg rice, 1 kg dal and kerosene to the affected families from Tuesday onwards.

However, the Civil Supplies officials could not get the same from their godowns. MLAs Velagapudi Ramakrishna Babu and P Vishnukumar Raju expressed their anger at the Civil Supplies Department. Both had heated arguments with the officials at the Collectorate.

Even Civil Supplies Minister Paritala Sunitha was around when the argument took place, but did not involve in the issue. The Transport Department also complained about the arrival of too many officials and VIPs. Instead of providing vehicles for relief operations, the officials are providing transportation to the VIPs.

'Already the people are facing severe shortage of petrol and diesel and providing fuel to a large number VIP and official vehicles,' an inspector lamented.