A team of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), comprising senior leaders Biswa Bhusan Harichandan, Mahesh Mohanty, Manmath Mallick and Anil Dhir visited several affected areas of the cyclone-hit Ganjam and flood- affected Bhadrak districts and took stock of the relief and restoration work.
Former Minister Harichandan after visiting the two districts commented that the Government had been making a false propaganda about its success in rescuing the distressed people and providing them relief, while in reality, still lakhs of calamity-stressed people had been suffering without food, water and shelter.
The people of the affected areas are in the worst condition. The scenario of the affected zones are heart wrenching. Three days after the cyclone, what we found was the people of Ganjam were not able to get cooked or dry food, candle, drinking water and other necessary items. Similarly, on the fourth day, people in the low-lying areas of Bhadrak had been given only two kg rice and 200 gm flattened rice each. The Government had at its disposal personnel from the three wings of the armed forces along with the National Disaster Rapid Force (NDRF) but it failed to provide relief materials to the affected people in time. Basic relief materials were found stored in the block and panchayat offices of the flood zone belts, lamented the team members, continuing that there was no arrangement or availability of boats for the evacuation of people to safe places in the flood hit areas.
While instructions after instructions were given by the Government at the State Secretariat, no one was heeding them. Even the propaganda of supply of adequate relief materials to people created a false complacency among the social groups and NGOs which didn’t take the case much seriously, they said.
The BJP leaders demanded restoration of electricity in the affected areas at a war footing, proper damage assessment, assistance under the relief scheme, houses under Indra Awas Yojna within a week, provision of plastic tarpaulins, money and rice, crop loss assessment, proper assistance to people for alternate crops, assistance to Kewda cultivators and fisherman who have lost their boats and nets, creation of mangrove forests and strengthening of the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority, apart from forming an all-party committee for monitoring the relief and restoration work.