Central Team Praises Odisha’s Disaster Preparedness & Management Skills

Bhubaneswar: A Central team to assess the post-Cyclone Amphan damage in Odisha has praised the state government for its preparedness, response and disaster management skills.

“The pre-positioning of manpower and machines in vulnerable pockets, timely evacuation of people from low lying areas and kutcha houses, preventive preparedness and community involvement are the achievements of the Odisha government,” said the Joint Secretary of Union Home Ministry, Shri Prakash, who led the seven-member team.

“We have seen in remote areas that even electricity could be restored within 24 to 72 hours,” he added.

Prakash said this during a meeting with Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy and other senior officials at Lok Seva Bhawan here on Friday.

Also Read: Odisha Team Praised For Restoration Work In Amphan-Ravaged West Bengal

On his part, Tripathy stated that cyclones are going to be a regular feature in summer, monsoon and post-monsoon months due to the geo-climatic location of Odisha. He, therefore, requested the Centre to support Odisha in building cyclone-resilient infrastructure rather than that spending huge amounts of money every year towards immediate restoration and rehabilitation.

Additional Chief Secretary and Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) Pradeep Kumar Jena emphasised on laying of underground cables in urban areas, resilient power transmission and distribution infrastructure in rural areas, building remote control GIS (geographic information system) grid, raising the height of the saline embankments at least up to 6.5 metres and converting 1.66 lakh kutcha houses to cyclone-resilient pucca houses.

He also apprised the Central team of the preliminary estimate of around Rs 20,000 crore for these resilient infrastructure building and immediate restoration of the damage caused by the cyclone Amphan. “The resilient infrastructure building is the thrust of our memorandum,” he said, adding that the final memorandum will be sent to the Centre within the next week.

In reply, Prakash said that the Central team which visited the cyclone-hit districts of Balasore, Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara, will soon submit a report to the Centre with the state government’s suggestions.

Also Read: Central Team Lands In Odisha To Assess Amphan Damage