AP to request liberal assistance from Centre for rains, flood

The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to request the central government to extend liberal assistance to the state due to heavy losses caused by cyclone Phailin, heavy rains and floods.
The state government has estimated that the loss due to the heavy rains alone stood at Rs 3,352 crore, a press release by the Chief Minister's Office said here today.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy at a high-level review meeting held here today said that he would write to the Centre for liberal financial assistance, the release said.
He said that he would also request the Centre to send a team to study the World Bank proposal for a long-term cyclone relief project in coastal districts, it said.

The government would approach banks to reschedule crop loans in rain-hit areas, it said.
The AP CM asked the state finance department to consider clearing old dues amounting to Rs 763 crore towards relief works related to drought, cyclone Neelam and hailstorm during the last two years.

The government also decided to distribute Rs 1.5 lakh as ex-gratia each to families of 53 persons killed in heavy rains over last week.
Permanent houses would be built for over 48,500 families which lost their dwellings in the deluge, the release said.
The AP Chief Minister said that he had spoken to Union Textiles Minister Kavuri Sambasiva Rao and requested him to direct the Cotton Corporation of India to procure cotton damaged during the rains.

Cotton crop in an area of 5.97 lakh hectares was inundated due to heavy rains and floods.