Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik visited Rayagada on Tuesday to assess situation after Cyclone Hudhud in both Rayagada and Gajapati districts.
After his helicopter landed at 2.45 pm, he went straight to attend a meeting with the top bureaucrats of the two districts led by their respective district Collectors. The meeting lasted hardly for ten minutes. While coming out, Patnaik said he had a review of the cyclone situation and rescue measures. He assured that every possible step would be taken to mitigate the problems in the post cyclone situation.
Prior to the Chief Minister’s visit, on Monday a group of scribes had gone to the district Collectorate here to get vital statistics on the cyclone. To their astonishment, they found that the Emergency Cell was closed till 5 pm though it was supposed to function for 24 hours. A staff pointed out no statistics was available. When the discrepancy was brought to the notice of the Collector, he hurriedly sent some officers to the Emergency Cell and called a Press meet at his residential office. He did not reveal about the visit of the Chief Minister for Tuesday.
“Though the effect of Hudhud is least in Rayagada, he has taken this as opportunity to garner huge amount of money to cover up the extremely low standard roads and other construction works. For example proposals have been submitted for roads like Chandili to Dunduli, Palama to Pangili, Jimidipeta to Pipiliguda, Maligaon to Sakata, Muniguda to Kumardhamuni which were already of low standard in construction. Several officers are in knee deep corruption as far the construction of roads, schools and bridges are concerned. Now they would demand more money under the pretext of cyclone,” said Guru Sahu, a youth leader of the district.
“Muniguda has more than 30 villages inhabited by Dangaria Kandha tribes. Most of their houses are kutcha. Chandrapur is most interior and prone to all natural calamities. In usual rains, many of the kutcha houses from tribal villages either get fully or partially damaged. Not a single case of house damage from these two blocks raised doubt about proper assessment. The estimation of the house damage is also arbitrary. Not consulting the civil societies, who are the last hope of the affected, during preparedness or the cyclone aftermath is certainly a serious lapse. This reflects the ulterior motives of several stakeholders,” said Bijaya Kumar Baboo, a social activist of the district.