There was a need to prepare long-term plans for coastal cities and another plan to suit interior areas to face natural calamities, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said during a discussion with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank team that toured the district on Thursday to assess the damage caused by the October 12 Hudhud cyclone.
“The plans must be made taking into consideration the previous experiences. A.P. has a long coastline and it too should have a plan similar to the plans being implemented in Japan and Malaysia. We experience many cyclones and need technical and financial support to establish ourselves a natural shield,” he told the team.
He cited the example of some areas in Visakhapatnam and Bheemunipatnam receiving some protection from Hudhud cyclone due to palmyrah groves. Country Director of World Bank Onno Ruhl sought three months time to prepare the plan. “First we concentrate on favourable issues and then concentrate on critical areas,” he explained.
The other members of the 10-member team led by Joint Secretary to Union Ministry of Economics Tarun Bajaj were Country Director of ADB M. Teresa Kho, Director of Department of Economics Aparna Bhatia, World Bank senior disaster risk management consultants Saurabh S. Dani and Deepak Singh, Energy Head (India) of ADB Andrew Jeffries, Team Leader (transport) of ADB Anil Motwani and urban specialist of ADB Pushkar Srivastava.
The team visited some of the areas and structures destroyed by the Hudhud cyclone in the district, starting with the airport terminal. At the Collectorate it went through a photo exhibition and watched a power point presentation by Collector N. Yuvaraj and heads of departments and team members expressed their concern over the extensive damage the district had witnessed.
