Cyclone Amphan: Central Team Applauds Preparedness, Response, and Disaster Management Skill of Odisha

Bhubaneswar: The seven-member Central Team led by Sri Prakash, which visited Odisha to assess the damage caused by cyclone Amphan, applauded the preparedness, response and disaster management skill of Odisha in their meeting with Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy and other senior officers in the Lokseva Bhawan conference hall today evening.

The members of team mentioned that prepositioning of manpower and machines in vulnerable pockets, timely evacuation of people from low laying areas and kuccha houses, preventive and community involvement are the achievements of Odisha.

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

The Chief Secretary said, “due to geo-climatic location of Odisha and climate change impacts, cyclones are going to be regular feature in summer, monsoon and post-monsoon months. So we request Government of India to support us for building cyclone resilient than that of spending huge amount each year towards immediate restoration and rehabilitation”
Additional Chief Secretary and SRC Odisha Pradeep Kumar Jena emphasized on laying of underground cable in urban areas, resilient power transmission and distribution infrastructure in rural areas, building remote control GIS grid, raising height of the saline embankments at least up to 6.5 mts above the sea level and converting 1.66 lakh kaccha houses to cyclone resilient pucca houses.

Jena appraised that preliminary estimate of around Rs.20,000 cr has been made for these resilient infrastructure building and immediate restoration of the damage caused by the cyclone Amphan.

He added, “Resilient infrastructure building is thrust of our memorandum”.

Chief Secretary Tripathy said that the final memorandum would be sent within the next week.

Development Commissioner Suresh Chandra Mohapatra along with Principal Secretaries and Secretaries of different departments participated in the discussions.

The team visited the districts of Balasore, Bhadrak , Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara in two different teams.

The Team leader Sri Prkash said they would submit the report to Government of India soon with excellent suggestions of the State Government for resilient infra building.