Vijayawada, Sep 10 (IANS): With flood water almost receding from inundated areas of Andhra Pradesh's Vijayawada, normalcy is likely to return to the city by Tuesday evening.

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has asked officials to ensure that normalcy returns by evening and start working on reconstruction.

CM Naidu, who has been camping in the city for the last 10 days, exuded confidence that normalcy would return to the city by evening as he reviewed the situation with ministers and officials till midnight.

Municipal Administration Minister P. Narayana said normalcy was restored in 26 wards out of 32, which were inundated following unprecedented rainfall and breaches to Budameru Rivulet on August 31 - September 1.

Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) is pumping out water from some areas which are still facing the problem of water stagnation.

Efforts were on to drain water from a few areas in Payakapuram which remained submerged for nine days.

Authorities were also trying to clear water stagnation in Kandrika near the Nunna-Nuzvid highway. Minister Narayana spoke to officials and directed them to deploy 10 JCBs to dig the road to pump out water. He hoped that the work would be completed by Tuesday evening.

“Flood water has almost receded from all areas which were inundated. In Kandrika the work will be completed by this evening,” said Naranayana

The VMC is focussing on sanitation with sanitation workers working in three shifts to clear debris from affected areas.

The workers were clearing sand, mud, and debris from roads and residential areas and sprinkling bleaching powder.

Energy Minister Gottiappati Ravikumar said power was restored to 95 per cent of the affected areas. He said the remaining five per cent of areas would get the power by the evening.

The authorities have also intensified the distribution of ration kits among affected families. More than 1.63 lakh families have already received the ration kits while the remaining 74,020 are likely to be covered in a couple of days.

Heavy rain and floods claimed 46 lives, affected over 10 lakh people, and caused massive destruction in six districts in south coastal Andhra. NTR district accounted for 36 deaths. Almost all the deaths were reported from Vijayawada.