Minister for Municipal Administration, IT and Industries K.T. Rama Rao on Wednesday appealed to the residents living in dilapidated buildings to immediately vacate in view of forecast of more heavy rains by the Met Department in the next 48 hours.
Addressing a press conference at the GHMC head office on Wednesday afternoon after being briefed about the ongoing relief operations, Mr. Rao said the municipal corporation had identified around 1,997 old buildings of which 940 were demolished and 95 were either retro-fitted or demolished by the owners themselves.
The remaining 960-odd buildings are kept under watch, with the Minister once again appealing to the owners to cooperate and vacate.
There are also about 150 court cases pertaining to these buildings.
“We are trying to persuade them because if we try to remove them forcibly, it will become another issue,” he said. About 14 buildings were demolished on Wednesday.
Mr. Rao said Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma have been constantly monitoring the situation and were issuing necessary instructions to the officers concerned.
He appreciated the efforts put in by the municipal staff, water board, power utility body, and the police in responding to emergencies on time.
Earlier, the GHMC officials informed that the current storm water drains capacity to clear out rain water is about 20 mm an hour, and Wednesday’s rain was to the tune of 60 mm per hour. Hence, there was heavy water-logging and inundations in various places.
Control roomGHMC Commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy announced the setting up of a temporary control room inside the GHMC head office in the ‘Face to Face’ room on the ground floor to function round-the-clock. Following are the staff:
Engineering wing to be headed by executive engineer Nurul Ahmed (9704670182) and three other engineers, electrical department headed by AEE Y. Vanitha (9959442432) with an assisting AE; health and sanitation to be manned by two member teams of T. Balraj (9492356242) and B. Mahesh Goud (9000099601), Raghavendra (9441650612) and Sri Srinivas (9848948929), and Bhaskar (7075809409), Sri Kiran ( 9666753299) and Meena (871266320).
A three-member TSSPDCL will be also functioning with these teams – ADEs Balu (9440813932), Raju (9440813921) and Ramesh (9440812999).
