Central team to submit flood damage report in 15 days

A ten-member Central team led by O P Mahey, joint secretary, Union ministry of home affairs, which had been on a visit to the flood affected regions of Orissa, will submit its report to the Government of India in 10-15 days.

“We had visited the flood affected areas of Orissa. The flood is severe and it has caused huge damage. We will be submitting a report to the Centre in 10-15 days,” said Mahey after holding talks with the state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Asked if the Orissa government's demand of Rs 3,265.38 crore towards damage caused by the two floods was justified, he said, “The state's government's assessment may be more but our norms are conservative. We have our own set of norms for assessing the damage.”

Sudhir Saxena, senior consultant, Union ministry of drinking water and sanitation and also one of the team members said, “The flood is severe and it has caused large scale damage. Also, there has been widespread damage to the agriculture sector. A large number of houses have been damaged. The relief and rehabilitation work is going on smoothly. We haven't got any complaint from the affected people regarding relief work during our field visit.”

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, “The Central team met me on Friday. They had an extensive trip of the flood affected areas. We have made a demand of around Rs 3,300 crore for devastation caused by the flood.”

The Central team was split into three groups. While the first group visited Puri district, the second group visited the flood affected areas of Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur districts. The third group visited Cuttack, Bhadrak and Jajpur districts.

The overall damage in the second spell of devastating flood that has hit 10 districts of the state has been assessed at Rs 1,144.46 crore. In toto, the total damage caused by the two floods that have have affected 20 districts stands at Rs 3,265.38 crore with the damage in the first flood assessed at Rs 2,020.91 crore.

The death toll in the second spell of flood has touched 40 while two persons continue to remain missing in Jajpur and Kendrapara districts. Of the 40 persons who have lost their lives, 10 are from Bhadrak, nine from Jajpur, six from Kendrapara, four each from Koenjhar and Sundergarh, three from Balasore, two from Dhenkanal and one each from Angul and Mayurbhanj districts.

Ten districts have been affected by the current spell of flood-Angul, Balasore, Bhadrak, Deogarh, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Keonjhar, Kendrapara, Mayurbhanj and Sundergarh.

As many as 1,362 villages still remain marooned while 2.53 million people belonging to 4,054 villages under 890 gram panchayats in 71 blocks and 12 urban local bodies have been affected by the flood.