The Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) has been honoured with the coveted SKOCH award, the highest independent honour in the country, for the year 2018 for its remarkable achievements in the field of disaster management at the 56th SKOTCH Summit held at New Delhi recently.
The SKOCH Group has been felicitating India’s highest independent civilian honours since 2003 to individuals and institutions having done meritorious works in the field of governance, finance, banking, disaster management, technology, corporate citizenship, economics and inclusive growth.
The OSDMA received the award in addition to “Order-of-Merit” Gold for building community resilience by constructing 879 multipurpose cyclone and flood shelters across the coastline and flood prone areas of the State, which played a key role in saving human lives during Cyclone Phailin in the year 2013.
The OSDMA added more feathers to its achievement by receiving “Order-of-Merit” Silver for constructing disaster resilient houses to
about 17,000 Phailin affected families by relocating them to 140 safer relocation sites equipped with all basic amenities in Ganjam and Khordha districts and “Order-of-Merit” Bronze for establishing a fail proof Early Warning Dissemination System for different hydro-meteorological disasters, which will benefit 1,205 villages in 22 blocks of six coastal districts.
OSDMA System Expert and MIS Specialist Arabinda Ray received the awards.