Though the worst-hit Ganjam district is slowly limping back to normal, still the harrowing night of October 12 haunts the locals.The devastation of electric poles, transformers and power grid has left them in darkness as despite all efforts of the Energy department, electricity was yet to be restored to all parts of the district.
When electricity has gone, all mode of communications like telephone, mobile and internet etc have been paralysed, increasing the solitariness of the people.
The Pioneer team visited a few villages and towns of Ganjam to see how people were suffering sans power after day break. We had spent nights before the cyclone in Brahmapur. The markets wore a solitary look as electricity was yet to be restored. Villages, towns and semi-urban areas were enveloped in darkness in the absence of electricity.
Durga puja festival lost its luster due to the Phailin. The cyclone destroyed the well decorated costly puja pandals along with idols in Brahmapur . As a result, business activities were adversely affected.
Every year Kumar Purnima, a festival of joy for adolescent girls, has a special place in the heart of villagers, but this year, the Phailin robbed them of the festive mood. As religious Odia month ‘Kartika’ started from Saturday, no morning hymns of village priest was coming through mikes due to the power cut.
Due to the Phailin, official sources said, power connection to 45,960 villages was disrupted. Though the State Government has restored power in many villages, over 21,000 villages are still in dark. Thousands of electricity poles were damaged and uprooted in the cyclone and the power grids received heavy damage in the gale.
After the devastation of power sector in the affected areas, one of the serious problems was communication hitches. As electricity is normally needed for charging the mobile phone, lakhs of mobiles lay dead. Family members living outside the city or State failed to contact their kin. Some of the electrical, electronic and mobile shops offered services at Rs 20 per charging a mobile battery at Brahmapur, Ganjam town, Rambha and Khallikote.
We visited Podagada, a beautiful village surrounded by hills near the Bay of Bengal, under Ramagarh gram panchayat of Ganjam district to take stock of the situation after Phailin. While entering to the village, we saw a gigantic tree destroyed in the cyclone and an asbestos house of one Ramesh Pradhan near the tree was also totally damaged. like Ramesh’s house, 12 another houses of the village had been damaged. We met some elder persons of the village. They told us about the huge loss due to heavy damage of fruit bearing trees like coconut, mango, jackfruit and cashew along with kewda yards.
The villagers said that paddy crops were affected as salty water of a canal connecting sea and Chilika entered into the paddy field. “The paddy plants, which were in a stage of flowering, were destroyed due to the storm,” said Jogi Pallai, a villager, adding, “It will severely affect the yield.”
Another villager Pabana Pradhan, a farmer who cultivates kewda flower, said that most of the kewda grooves faced the ire of the Phailin. “I can’t get a single flower this year, though I usually pluck 400 to 500 flowers everyday during the season,” he lamented.
After processing, kewda flowers are normally used for perfume and Gutkha industry. Around 20,000 acres of land in the areas Chikiti, Ganjam, Chatrapur and Rangeilunda of Ganjam district have kewda grooves. It has a good market in and outside of the country, but Phailin wiped them out.
We visited Karpada village under Ganjam block to see the condition of betel vines. We found vine yards severely affected. Most of the leaves were rotten. A farmer of the village Raju Reddy said the betel leaves were in demand and the farmers earn good money out of it, but the gale razed them all.
Notably, around 2,000 acres of land in the blocks of Ganjam, Rangeilunda, Patrapur, Hinjili have betel vine yards and the farmers sell it in and outside of the State to get good money, but the recent crop loss created a heavy burden on the farmers.
Similarly, lakhs of cashew trees had been destroyed in several places of the district. Cashew is another important cash crop in the district which has been grown over 50,000 hectares of land in Ganjam, Chatrapur, Khallikote and other blocks. “I lost two acres filled with cashew trees in the cyclone, which will take years to get its previous state,” said farmer Dama Pradhan of Podagada-Jhatipadar village under Ganjam block.
loss of livelihood along with houses in the cyclone has left the farming community in utter distress. Electricity problem will be solved after October 30 according to Energy Minister Arun Sahoo, but the restoration of livelihood of lakhs of farmers may take a pretty long time.