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| A Bus as War-Room, Office and Home |
| A Bus as War-Room, Office and Home for Chandrababu Naidu
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| INDIA
, 18-October-2014
11:27:46 AM |
| A large mint-green-and-white bus has become the centre of gravity for Visakhapatnam, which was whipped into chaos by Cyclone Hudhud six days ago.
It is this bus that has turned into the makeshift office of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, who has shifted base from the capital of Hyderabad to the port town of Vizag as it's known to ensure his administration delivers.
Mr Naidu, 64, sleeps (sparingly, his aides say), eats and works out of this bus that has been parked since Monday outside the main government office or Collectorate in Visakhapatnam.
Today, a third Of Vizag is no longer without power. By Sunday evening, the entire city should have electricity, a press release from the government said. The local airport, whose roof was torn away by fierce winds, is back in action, with hand-written boarding passes and tarpaulin covering the passenger terminal. Fuel is available freely and there are no lines at petrol pumps. And everyday, food is being served and dry rations are being distributed to thousands of people.
That is not enough, he says, to the dozen or so officials and ministers he is able to meet within his bus, and also to the hundreds he addresses inside the collectorate every day, followed by a mandatory press briefing, as he receives updates and assigns an expansive to-do list to top bureaucrats and officers.
Mr Naidu has said that his first priority, once the alert for Hudhud was sounded, was to minimize casualties. About 20 people died in Andhra Pradesh. Nearly 1,50,000 people were evacuated. "People in Vizag are losing confidence, they are demoralised," the Chief Minister told NDTV, seated inside the bus, sparing a few minutes between meetings. "I need to be here until the last man feels he is up and until the last electrical pole is energized."
It is this commitment - action rather than the words of a politician - that has earned him much credit both within and outside Vizag since the cyclone hit with insidious force.
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