Ministerial Committee To Oversee Relief Ops In Titli-Affected Districts

Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday constituted a three-member ministerial committee with Revenue Minister Maheswar Mohanty, Water Resources Minister Niranjan Pujari and Energy Minister Sushanta Singh as members.

He has directed the committee to visit Titli-affected Ganjam, Gajapati and Rayagada district immediately and monitor the relief rescue and restoration operations.

During a video conferencing at the State Secretariat here, the Chief Minister directed the collectors of these three cyclone-hit districts to provide free cooked food to the affected people for seven days.

He also asked them to immediately repair the breaches in the river embankments caused by the flood, evacuate people from the low-lying areas to safer places with provision of free cooked for them, conduct health camps and veterinary camps in the affected areas with free distribution of medicines and take up restoration of road and power connectivity on a war footing.

Naveen also asked the Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) to submit a report on the assessment of the damage to the houses, crops and animal resources within a week.

Briefing mediapersons after the meeting, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi said under the influence of the cyclone Titli, there has been widespread rainfall in several districts of the state with more than 300 mm rainfall in G Udayagiri and Kantapada in Kandhamal district. “Due to heavy rainfall in Ganjam district, there is a flood situation in Aska and Purushottampur. For relief and rescue operations, 14 NDRF and 12 ODRAF teams have been deployed in Ganjam, Gajapati and Rayagada districts,” he said.

He also informed that two helicopters from Visakhapatnam are on the way to Odisha for evacuation of people and distribution of relief materials in the three affected districts.

Apart from this, efforts are on to restore road and power connectivity at important places within 2-3 days, the chief secretary added.

He further said that pregnant women and the newborns are being provided special healthcare at the hospitals and the multi-purpose shelter homes.

The meeting revealed that the NDRF and ODRAF personnel had rescued eight nomadic persons from Gunupur in Nabarangpur district during the onset of the cyclonic storm. Besides, they had also rescued the fishermen of the Andhra Pradesh, who were stranded in the deep sea off the Gopalpur coast in the night of October 10.