Central team to assess Cyclone Arnab damage in Andhra districts

Andhra: Central team to visit cyclone-hit areas tomorrow

Amaravati, Oct 30

Prakhar Jain, Managing Director of the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA), announced on Friday that a seven-member Inter-Ministerial Central Team, led by Chittaranjan Dash, Joint Secretary in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, will visit the cyclone-affected districts over the next two days to assess the damage on the ground.

The team will visit Konaseema, Kakinada, East Godavari, and West Godavari districts.

On Saturday, senior officials will brief the team at the Real-Time Governance Society (RTGS) centre regarding the measures taken during the cyclone and the extent of the damage.

Following this, the team will split into two groups to visit the cyclone-affected areas. The first group will be accompanied by the RTGS CEO and APSDMA MD Prakhar Jain, while the second group will be accompanied by the Director of Secondary Health, Chakradhara Babu.

The team is expected to meet Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on Monday evening.

Prakhar Jain said on Saturday, Team-1 will visit Konaseema district, and Team-2 will visit East Godavari district. On Sunday, Team- 1 will visit Kakinada district while Team-2 will visit West Godavari district to personally inspect the damages and interact with the victims of the cyclone.

The members of the Central team are Prashant Armorikar, ADC, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; Rekharani Kollu, Superintending Engineer, Ministry of Jal Shakti (CWC); Himalaya Garg, Assistant Director, Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance; Rakesh Kumar Singh, Superintending Engineer, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways; Alok Jawahar, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development; Pranay Garg, Deputy Director, Ministry of Power and Dr. S.V.S.P. Sharma, Scientist 'SF', National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO.

Meanwhile, another Central team will also examine drought conditions affecting the Kharif 2026 season on Monday and Tuesday (November 2-3).

It will visit Sri Sathya Sai, Anantapur, Kurnool, and Nandyal districts.

Prakhar Jain said that a Central team-led by Chinmay Gotmare, Joint Secretary in the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare-will visit the drought-affected districts.

The 10-member team will split into two groups to conduct field visits to interact with farmers and assess the drought situation. According to the guidelines of the Drought Manual issued by the Union Ministry of Agriculture, 283 mandals have been declared as experiencing severe drought, and 105 mandals as experiencing moderate drought for the Kharif 2026 season. The team is expected to meet with the Chief Minister on Wednesday (November 4).

The members of this team are Prabha Kanti, Assistant Director, Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC); Vinod Samant, Under Secretary, Department of Rural Development; Pankaj Pahadia, Deputy Director, Department of Expenditure; N.V. Satish Seemakurthi, Director, Directorate of Monitoring and Appraisal; Dr. K. Ponnusamy, Director, Oilseeds Development; Anuradha Batana, Senior Research Officer, NITI Aayog; Dhirendra Kumar, RIC; Pradeep Kumar, Under Secretary, Department of Food and Public Distribution and Dr. Sakshi Bhadauria, Animal Husbandry Officer, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying.

— IANS