Ganjam rises to challenge with post-disaster ops

It took the government more than a month to send relief to 12 lakh people of Jagatsinghpur in 1999.

The post-Phailin relief operation in Ganjam,the Ground Zero of the cyclone,could be one of the biggest post-disaster operations in India in recent times.

Continuous rain since Monday has added to the misery of people. During the 1999 supercyclone,Orissa government drew flak for its failure in sending relief to victims as supplies rotted in Bhubaneswar or were looted on their way. It took the government more than a month to send relief to 12 lakh people of Jagatsinghpur in 1999. This time,officials claim they have reached over 65 per cent of the 37 lakh affected people in Ganjam in less than 10 days.

Despite continuing rains,we have done well, said special relief commissioner of Orissa,Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra. Officials said by Friday evening,9 days after the announcement of a relief package of 50 kg of rice and Rs 500,more than 6.5 lakh families of the targeted 9.4 lakh families had received it. Though the district had 7.6 lakh families,the numbers increased as there was more than one claimant from several families. We also faced difficulties due to shortage of trucks and other roadblocks.

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At Chhatrapur,Ganjam under collector Dr Krishan Kumar spent the first two days clearing roads to each of the grampanchayats. 90 per cent of the roads were cleared by October 14 evening, said Chhatrapur sub-collector Ashish Thakre.

Officials said logistical headaches like lack of adequate number of trucks to move the rice bags also cropped up. We had to lift almost 4 lakh quintals in 1/4th the time. The system was not geared up for so much in such little time. We had to quickly mobilise the grain from eight nearby districts, said Prem Chandra Chaudhury,project director of District Rural Development Agency of Ganjam and in-charge of rice mobilisation exercise. They also had to get at least 4000 trucks to ferry the rice to the grampanchayat offices. It was festive season and drivers were hard to come by, Thakre said.

Officials in the area worked non-stop. We deployed over 15,000 officials,including village-level workers,teachers,livestock inspectors and agriculture extension officers, for relief operations, deputy collector Diptirani Mohapatra said. The officials manned the complaint and monitoring cell that handled calls from victims.