The government has taken up the task of air-dropping essential commodities for the benefit of the residents in the flood-ravaged villages of Chittoor district on Tuesday.
A naval helicopter has been pressed into service to air-drop bags containing grocery items such as 5kg of rice, 1kg of redgram, one litre of palm oil and so on to the marooned villages abutting Rayalacheruvu tank. The villages remained submerged under water due to the heavy realease of water from it, to save its bund from the breaches suffered near Kuppam Badur end. The urgent release of water was necessitated to save the breach from developing into a gaping hole, which was feared to flood around a hundred villages in Ramachandrapuram and Tirupati rural mandals.
An aerial view of a village near Rayalacheruvu tank submerged due to the heavy release of water near Tirupati on November 23.
Government whip and local legislator Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy, who hopped on to the chopper to directly deliver the commodities, assured the public that there was no need to panic and the situation was very much under control. He said normalcy would be restored in the villages in a couple of days. The grocery bags were dropped in C. Kalepalle, Chittathuru, Rayalacheruvu, Pullamanaidu Kandriga villages of Ramachandrapuram mandal and Vinayaka Nagar colony of Tirupati rural mandal.
