State flood memo for Central team

The Orissa government will prepare a memorandum on the devastation wrought by recent floods in the state for submission to the Central team which is likely to visit the state soon.

All the departments have been instructed to collect the details to be presented by the state government to the Central team.

The details include reconstruction work to be taken up under the existing schemes and the schemes where additional central assistance (ACA) would be sought.

Besides, the government has also decided to set up 5 more Orissa Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) units in the state. This will take the total ODRAF units functioning in the state to ten.

This was decided in a high level meeting chaired by the chief minister Naveen Patnaik to review the reconstruction and rehabilitation work after the floods.

Briefing the media after the meeting, the chief secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy said, the repair of the river banks and the canals will be completed by November 15. The money will be released from the Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) for repair and restoration of the lift irrigation (LI) points.

If more funds are required, advance can be taken from the Orissa Contingency Fund (OCF).While there is substantial improvement in the supply of polythene, about 120 tonnes of baby food obtained from World Food Programme (WFP) have been distributed in the affected areas. Besides, the collectors of the affected districts have been directed to provide baby food worth Rs 225 per child for a period of 15 days.

He said, the local verification of the flood damages is being done at present and the affected persons not staying in their houses have been requested to return to their houses to claim damages. The damage compensation will be provided after the survey is complete.