The Godavari floods in Andhra Pradesh have continued to affect residents of villages in the Godavari districts for nearly 10 days now. The discharge at Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage at Dowleswaram remained at over 18 lakh cusecs on Sunday evening.
Many of the lanka (island) villages in East and West Godavari districts continued to be marooned, though the flood flow has reduced by over two lakh cusecs since Saturday.
With the residents of many of these villages continuing to remain cut off from the towns by road, officials had made arrangements to provide essential supplies beforehand, and continue the supply through the waterways and through heavy vehicles in places where the roads have turned muddy.
However, activists from Rampachodavaram in East Godavari alleged that residents of nearly 30 tribal settlements in Devipatnam mandal, including Kachuluru and Kondamodalu villages, have not been receiving provisions. “Residents of 30 villages who have stayed back are suffering a lot due to lack of food provisions,” said a statement from the group, who had visited these villages on Friday. The statement also claimed that drinking water was unavailable in some villages.
Balu Akkisa, President of Rights Watch AP, said that the residents were apprehensive of going to the relief camp in Rampachodavaram out of fear of contracting COVID-19 and hence, stayed back in their homes. The residents, who are all living in villages affected by the Polavaram project, have not yet moved out of their homes because of discrepancies in the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) packages, he said.
However, Rampachodavaram Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) Project Officer Praveen Aditya denied the allegations and said that essential commodities for the entire month of August have been supplied to all the affected villages in advance. “As and when water supply is required, we’re giving them water packets. Every day, stock has been going there, kerosene and candles have also been provided,” he said. He also said that the distribution of vegetables will commence on Tuesday.
The activists also opposed the imposition of curfew through Section 144 of the CrPC (Code Of Criminal Procedure) in the region and restrictions disallowing media persons to travel to the affected villages. Project Officer Praveen Aditya said that curfew was imposed to discourage people who had moved out of inundated habitations from prematurely returning to their homes. “The water had started receding a few days back, and then started increasing again. We’ve imposed certain restrictions so that the public do not start returning to their habitations by boat, etc., because water levels may rise suddenly,” he said.
He also said that media persons have been asked to register with the ITDA and obtain permission before visiting the interior flood-affected areas. The decision was taken in light of the recent boat accident in Chinturu, he said, to prevent such mishaps.
Normal life has been largely affected in the flood-affected villages, as the power supply too has been cut off for more than a week now. The relief camps in the two Godavari districts are continuing to function, where more than 60,000 people have been sheltered, according to reports from the respective District Collectors.
The Krishna river, on the other hand, remained swollen but at reduced gravity as the inflow into Srisailam fell to over 3.26 lakh cusecs on Sunday evening. The discharge was also reduced to 3.76 lakh cusecs with a flood cushion of 7.06 tmc ft in the reservoir.
Consequently, the inflow into Nagarjuna Sagar downstream also dwindled to 2.83 lakh cusecs and that much water was being released into Dr KL Rao Sagar at Pulichintala. As the project was close to full capacity, 2.29 lakh cusecs was discharged downstream to Prakasam Barrage in Vijayawada. The Barrage received over 4.10 lakh cusecs of water, some of which came from the Muniyeru rivulet midstream, and 3.18 lakh cusecs was being released into the Bay of Bengal.