Vizag limping back to normality

Power supply, communication network partly restored

Visakhapatnam: The steel city which has been badly battered by Hudhud cyclone is slowly limping back to normality. Power supply has been partly restored in Visakhapatnam district and mobile communication services have also significantly improved, bringing some relief to the people facing harrowing times after Sunday's devastating Cyclone. Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary I Y R Krishna Rao said that power supply had been restored in 60 per cent of the localities in Visakhapatnam city. He said hospitals were given top priority in restoring power and water supply. The power supply has also been restored to Visakhapatnam steel plant to maintain critical operations

The chief secretary said that besides the power supply lines in the cyclone affected three districts, the towers of high voltage lines from the power generation units too had fallen due to the impact of heavy winds. This had made the restoration of power supply more difficult. Officials from the state power utilities and Power Grid Corporation of India had been camping at Visakhapatnam to see that 100 per cent power supply was restored in the next two days in all affected areas.

• 100% power supply in two days
• Hospitals, essential services, steel plant given power supply
• Men & material came from Telangana, TN, Odisha
• Flights to resume from today, airport suffers heavy loss of Rs 75-80 cr

Besides, men and material have come from the neighboring Telangana, Odisha and Tamil Nadu, he said.

A senior official of Indus Towers, a three-way joint venture between Airtel, Idea and Vodafone, said power supply had been provided to all strategic and important towers in East Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts.

Indus provides infrastructure facilities like towers and power supply to the three telecom service providers. The towers are now running with diesel generator supplied power, he said.

On the other hand, flight services from Visakhapatnam airport are scheduled to resume from Friday. Air India will start its flight operations first and subsequently another nine flights by other operators may start from Saturday. The airport is being restored and all efforts are being made for operation of immigration facilities so that the international flights may start by November 1, an official said. However, the airport authorities had made it clear that the comfort level at the airport would not be like pre-Hudhud period as the air-conditioning system was not working. According senior officials of Civil Aviation Ministry the loss to the airport could be in the range of Rs 75-80 crore. The airport handles about 20 flights a day including two international ones.

Various temporary measures were being taken such as provision of water-proof covering for the passengers, opening of four counters for checking and food counters. However, it would take about a month for the radar antenna, which was completely damaged, would have to be replaced, the civil aviation officials said.