Situation limping to normal in Fani-hit districts

Surjit Kumar Dhal,Bhubaneswar, May 19: The situation in the districts where extremely severe cyclone Fani wreaked havoc was fast returning to normal, the State government claimed on Saturday.

Secretary Information and Public Relation Sanjay Singh said at a press conference that the basic necessities of the people in the affected areas are being met on war footing.

He claimed that the human casualty could be limited to two digits due to the timely evacuation of the people to cyclone shelters and all overhead water tanks of rural and urban areas were kept full to meet the contingency.

Singh said required manpower and machineries were flown in from places such as Kolkata and Gujurat to operationalize the Mundali reservoir and water tankers, PVC tanks, generator sets used to mitigate the plight of the affected people.

“This was the result of preparedness of State Government for which 100% water supply was possible in record time,” he said.

The real challenge was power restoration in affected areas post FANI, Singh said adding, power supply could be restored in many areas due to concerted effort of authorities, workers, technicians, volunteers, even ITI/Polytechnic students.

The Secretary said, apprehension of large scale human casualty could be averted due to alertness and preparedness of OSDMA, administration of affected Districts, various government eepartments, non-government workers, meteorological  department and volunteers.

“The objective was to keep human casualty to zero, but despite the ferocity and wrath of the cyclone the death toll remained 64 which is comparatively below than the casualty suffered in Mozambique due to cyclone of lower magnitude recently,” he added.

He said the Central delegation praised the rescue, relief and restoration measures undertaken by State Government in such a trying time and lauded by International agencies.

Singh said distribution of relief materials among cyclone affected people is being carried out on war footing.

As much as 94.1pc of beneficiaries have been provided with cash component in Puri district while it is 98.3pc in Khurda District while 99.3pc of beneficiaries in Kendrapada district and 97.7pc in Cuttack district.

Similarly, 87.2% of beneficiaries have been provided cash component in BMC.

He said the rice component distribution has been 96.6%, 99%, 97.34%, 98.5%, 77.3% and 94.6% in Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada, Cuttack, BMC and Khordha respectively.

Besides, polythene or cash in lieu of polythene component has been distributed to 92%, 64.3%, 98.8% 83%, 97.5% and 98% of beneficiaries in Khordha, BMC, Cuttack, Puri, Kendrapada and Jagatsinghpur respectively.

He said authorities, workers, employees along with the volunteers continued their sincere effort to restore power supply In Cuttack Electrical Division CDD-1 where 100 per cent connectivity has been restored.

In CDD-II about 61,000 consumers out of around 69,000 consumers have been supplied power while in Cuttack CED division around 71,200 rural and urban consumers have been provided power connection out of 95,600 while in BCDD-I 100 per cent consumers have already been covered, in BCDD-II about 135040 rural and urban consumers out of 147531 consumers have been given power supply.

Similarly, in BED 108050 rural and urban consumers have been covered out of 109984 In Jagatsinghpur Electrical Divn. JED, 38 feeder out of 43 have become operational and so 85903 consumers have been provided electricity connection out of 116215. In Paradeep (PED) division, total 24 feeders have become operational while 93394 out of 101228 consumers have been provided with power supply.

In Puri out of 56 feeders, 07 have been made operational and substantial growth in number of connection has been made.

In Nimapada out of 28 feeders 5 feeders have been operational and around 9000 consumers have been given power supply.

He said 24 x 7 effort is being made to restore power supply in Puri District.

In telecommunication all master switching centres have been restored, Singh said.

The banking services has been 93.69 per cent on Saturday while in Khurda, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur and Ganjam districts the percentage has been 98.63, 99.49, 97.56, 99.77 respectively.

In Kendrapada, the functioning is 100 per cent, he added.