Odisha chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi is putting all-out efforts to deal with Cyclone Dana. For this, sources said, he is putting aside any political ego and wants to focus on rescue and relief work. The Majhi government has even decided to bring back six IAS officers to the frontline to deal with the cyclone. These officers, during the previous Naveen Patnaik government, had experience as well as a reputation for dealing with cyclone-related work. The present Bharatiya Janata Party-led government decided to bring back these officers and assign them to six districts that may be most affected by Cyclone Dana.
The special relief commissioner of Odisha, at short notice, asked IAS officers K Sudarshan Chakravarthy, Trilochan Majhi, Balwant Singh, Vineet Bhardwaj, Yamini Sarangi, and Samarth Verma to take charge of relief and operation work in six districts: Balasore, Bhadrak, Puri, Mayurbhanj, Jagatsinghpur, and Kendrapara. Each officer will look after one district.
Under the Naveen Patnaik government, these officers were heading cyclone-affected districts as collectors. After the BJP-led government came to power, they were transferred to various departments, like minerals, tourism, drinking water, and sanitation.
Cyclone Dana is expected to make landfall between Bhitarkanika National Park and Dhamra port in Odisha early Friday, with wind speeds reaching up to 120 kilometres per hour. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted on Wednesday that the storm will bring heavy rainfall to several Odisha and West Bengal districts in the next three days.
The Mohan Majhi government has held several meetings and discussions and instructed district administrations to act accordingly. The Odisha government has announced the closure of schools in coastal districts and begun preparations for “100% evacuation” of people from areas at risk of maximum destruction, reports say. Rescue teams have been deployed in districts likely to be affected. People there have been advised to move to safe places. Relief work is also being planned. Tourists in places like Puri that are at risk have been asked to move to safe cities or leave. Choppers are on standby for rescue and relief work. The central government has also extended full support to Odisha to deal with the cyclone.
The Odisha government has accelerated the evacuation of residents from coastal regions and has deployed 288 rescue teams to vulnerable areas across 14 districts. The state has mobilised 19 teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), 51 teams from the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF), and 178 teams from Fire Services, with an additional 40 teams sent to the impacted districts.
The government said it has kept ready around 800 cyclone shelters for people who will be evacuated from vulnerable areas. Officials have visited around 250 cyclone relief centres where people will be housed after evacuation, Odisha revenue and disaster management minister Suresh Pujari said, adding that food, water, medicine, electricity and other essentials are kept in readiness for those to be evacuated.
Odisha’s first-time BJP chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi will face a thorough comparison with his predecessor Naveen Patnaik in every sphere of activities. And the first such instance will be how his government handles the looming threat of Dana.
The Naveen Patnaik-led BJD government set various benchmarks in dealing with natural disasters like cyclones during his more than two decades of governance. The BJD came to power in Odisha after a disastrous supercyclone in 1999. The then Congress government led by Giridhar Gamang failed to handle the storm that hit Odisha at more than 250 km/hr, killing more than 10,000 people and lakhs of domestic animals.
It was a big challenge for the Naveen Patnaik government to manage natural disaster-prone Odisha. The BJD government set up the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) in 2001 to deal with natural calamities, which also inspired the Centre to form a similar disaster response team NDRF in 2006.
ODRAF received adequate training and equipment to deal with such situations. The state administration established proper coordination among the meteorology department, relief commission, and district administration to deal with any natural disasters. Proper and prior communication among administrations, keeping people aware of upcoming threats, evacuation to safe places, rehabilitation, etc, were ensured over time under Naveen Patnaik’s government. Building shelter homes helped shift affected people and domestic animals to safe places during any natural disaster. The system developed with such efficiency that natural disasters like Cyclone Phailin in 2013 saw zero human casualties, while 1 million people were evacuated at short notice, receiving praise at the international level.
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