BHUBANESWAR, NOV 6: Diwali will not bring even a flicker of cheer to the people of Orissa. With the marooned people fighting for survival, it is a taboo subject here.Any other year, city residents would have been busy with preparations for a colourful evening, buying fire crackers and sweets. But with darkness descending on the capital city each evening, where electricity is yet to be fully restored, the mood is grim.Every year, more than 300 firecracker stalls spring up in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack - the prime markets for crackers - around this time. Now, only three stalls have come up in Sahidnagar and three in Capital Market areas of Bhubaneswar, though most of them are yet to start sale. Similarly, in Cuttack, only seven stalls have opened in Buxi Bazar, Badambadi and Chauliaganj areas. The two major firecracker manufacturing centres of the state, at Berhampur in Ganjam district and Padmapur in Cuttack district, have been completely washed away in the two recent cyclones which hit the state in closesuccession.The 10 firecracker manufacturing units at Berhampur had collapsed in the first cyclonic storm on October 17. The devastation had also marooned the three villages where the manufacturers have been living since decades and killed several of them. According to the owners of some of the manufacturing units, truckloads of raw material for the crackers were destroyed in the heavy rain, while the locally available raw materials were washed away. In the second cyclonic devastation on October 29 and 30, nearly 500 families in Padmapur villages of Cuttack district, traditionally engaged in the manufacturing of firecrackers, were rendered homeless. Nearly 12 such units in the village collapsed and raw materials worth lakhs were destroyed.Though there is a possibility of getting the raw materials transported from Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu, no traders have thought it worthwhile to do that so far.
