Orissa struggles to take supplies to affected areas

Rajesh Patil claimed the situation has improved from what it was a day before.

Six days after cyclone Phailin struck Orissas coast and ravaged Ganjam,the floods triggered by it continue to wreak havoc in northern Orissa as a clueless administration there is still finding it difficult to send food to the affected villages.

The state government evacuated around a million people to the cyclone and flood shelters ahead of Phailins landfall at Gopalpur on Oct 12 night,but over one lakh people still continued to wait for relief in 199 villages of 43 grampanchayats of Balasore district till Thursday night. Balasore collector B Parameswaran claimed the water level had come down,but villagers in Balasore Sadar,Bhograi,Baliapal and Basta complained that no relief has reached them since Oct 13,when the flood hit.

In Mayurbhanj too,district collector Rajesh Patil claimed the situation has improved from what it was a day before. Water has receded in all flood affected areas and relief is reaching flood-affected people, claimed special relief commissioner PK Mohapatra.

So far,44 people have died due to the cyclone and the floods. In Ganjam,the Ground Zero of cyclone,13 people have died so far. The cyclone and floods have affected over 1.32 crore people in over 18000 villages and 44 urban local bodies of 18 districts.

The disaster has left over 4.19 lakh houses damaged,while crops over 6.71 lakh hectare have been destroyed.

Officials said relief distribution and power restoration work was hobbled by the lack of labourers and skilled manpower. Though 8 lakh families in Ganjam are supposed to get 50 kg of rice,so far just 1.53 lakh have got the supplies due to lack of labourers to load rice bags from trucks. Festivities have affected supply of labourers. We hope things will improve by next week, said a district official. Ganjam has also has not received the required 5 lakh polythene rolls for the affected people.

By Friday evening however,power supply was restored fully in Bhanjanagar NAC,the collectorate office,bus stand and hospital in Chhatrapur town. In Berhampur,power was restored to about 15 per cent consumers. State energy secretary PK Jena said electrical infrastructure in all 22 blocks and 18 towns of Ganjam have been badly affected. Besides transformers,about 30,000 electric poles have been damaged.

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Jena said lack of skilled electrical labourers was a big hurdle in erecting electrical poles and transformers. The state government has so far sent 1300 skilled electrical labourers for restoration work and asked for 300-odd more such labourers. Chhatrapur,where the cyclone caused maximum damaged may taken at least 3 weeks to get power supply, he said.