The people of Odisha have been very frequently facing disasters such as drought, flood and cyclone impacting the State’s overall development. The poor bear the brunt of it who are more prone to vulnerability in such situation. The effectiveness and commitment of the Government in managing disaster through rescue and relief operation should be extended in integrating disaster management concerns in the overall development prospective of the State as it is prone to tropical cyclones, tsunami, high wind, heavy rainfall, storm and a large part of the State comes under earthquake risk zone along with flood, river erosion and seasonal drought. The disasters are continuously affecting the agriculture growth which is the main stake of the poor people of the State. It disturbed food production, normal life and quality of living even though the cost of living in rural Odisha is one of the lowest in the country. While a large numbers of industries are coming up in coastal districts along with ports, the ecology and life of people is a matter of concern in the context of disasters that are routinely visiting people with a negative cost.
The cyclone mostly affects the coastal population in May–June and October–November every year. The State Government claims to be launching the most successful rescue operation. But there seems its responsibility to cease. It again braces up for another round of cyclone. What is disappointing is the State Government has very limited involvement in building long-term solutions to minimise and manage disaster as it shows from the past action during Phailin, flood and now Hudhud. In the context of recent Hudhud, the SRC claimed evacuation of one and a half lakhs people and cooked food provided at 1,690 cyclone shelters in nine districts with maximum in Gajapati, followed by Ganjam and Koraput.
The National Disaster Policy 2009 says there should be community based disaster preparedness and youth and women should be encouraged along with media and CSOs to promote voluntarism in managing disaster but it has been evident that the involvement of the community, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), civil society and other stakeholders in the process of disaster management has not been encouraged by the State Government.
There has been an impression that the Government officials are capable enough to manage everything without much public involvement. The Government machinery and few unaccountable media have created panic among public by quoting the prediction report of weather department/IMD and by that the black marketers and dishonesty business men took the advantage of the situation by cheating people through artificial hording of essential community which has been a major financial burden for wage earners of fixed income groups who are not getting any dearness allowances.
It is always the poor in coastal areas, slum dwellers, homeless and inhabitants of interior pockets, fisher folk, Dalits and Adivasis who are worst sufferers and always prone to suffering during disaster of any nature due to lack of adequate coping mechanism. The human causality happened with mostly the poor who are homeless and staying in thatched houses. The last Hudhud claimed three lives due to fall of wall of mud houses and collapsed of mud houses due to heavy rain in districts of Koraput, Ganjam, Gajapati, Malkanagiri, Kendrapada and Puri. The tribal people in these districts have suffered a lot. The more vulnerable primitive tribal such as Bonda and others in remote areas of backward districts got disturbed with loss of livelihood due to wind and heavy rainfall.
Udayanath Sahu (45) of Sidheswar village in Digapahandi block, Ganjam district who died in wall collapse was a poor homeless who had lost everything in last Phailin and was unable to repair his house due to lack of support of the Government. A fisherman in Puri died when he was hit by a fishing boat. The rescue operation by local Government officials of Rajnagar block at Satabhaya claimed life of two children of innocent poor families while they were shifted to cyclone shelter by crossing a river using a country boat. Mostly the elder, pregnant women and children seriously got affected and hospitalized. Hemanta Mallick and Puja Mallik lost their life due to careless attitude of the local administration in handling the operation without concern of safety and security of the people. There has been lack of fair weather road and the use of traditional country boat for evacuation shows nothing changed in terms of communication and use of technology while managing disaster. The administration handled the rescue operation in a mechanical way without involvement of the community and local youth but it is evident that it is the local youths with the spirit of sacrifice and voluntarism who saved many people in crisis. Sahadev Samal (36) of Rajnagar worked as a plumber in Kerla. He died in pneumonia by engaging himself to save the drowning people after spending several hours in water.
There has been inadequate public infrastructure in disaster prone areas in terms of communication such as linking roads, transportation facility and connectivity. There are multipurpose cyclone shelters but there have been no effort to build pucca houses under different housing schemes for very ones in cyclone prone areas especially for the landless poor people who cannot afford to build a house and the housing policy should be integrated to address the concern of disaster management to build disaster resilient houses and habitations.
The Eastern Ghat hills acted as a natural barrier to control Hudhud. There must be effort by the Government to create mangrove forest patch in the coast from Digha to Gopalpur to resist the cyclone along with building a coastal highway linking Vizag with Digha. The cyclone prone coastal district like Kedrapada is still not being linked with railway line and adequate communication facility.
The Centre has enacted the Disaster Management Act 2005 and created National Disaster Management Authority headed by the Prime Minister along with the National Policy on Disaster Management 2009 to advance a process of prevention, preparedness and mitigation. In line with the Centre, the State Disaster Management Authority headed by the Chief Minister and the District Disaster Management Authority headed by the district Collector have been formed but the policy, institutional and legal arrangements are not being translated into programme. The State Disaster Management Authority is under the administrative control of Revenue department since 1999 just after the Super Cyclone which claimed about ten thousand life.
The role of the State should not be reduced to a charity organisation by limiting its involvement in rescue and relief operation and seeking grant from Centre and international agencies. Odisha which has been prone to disaster should have a vision with defined policy in line with national and international strategy for disaster reduction. The State investment should be more in building long term ecologically sustainable public assets in disaster-prone areas while developing the marginalised sections that are more vulnerable in such situation.
(The writer is a rights activist, and can be reached at ojaabbsr@gmail.com )