Odisha CM directs administration to be ready to tackle floods

With the weather department predicting surplus rainfall this year, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today asked the administration to be fully prepared to tackle floods.
"The IMD has predicted surplus rainfall. Therefore, probability of flood this year appears to be very high. Keeping this in view, we have to remain in full preparedness to encounter flood situation," he told a state-level natural calamity meeting.
"It is the government's responsibility to reach out to the affected people and provide due assistance at the earliest in the event of flood", the Chief Minister said.
Pointing out that all the past breaches in embankments have been plugged, he said Water Resources department would ensure that adequate flood fighting materials are stored near weak and vulnerable points on river embankments and watch and ward arrangements made during flood, Patnaik said.

There are ten functional Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) units and the government has created ten more units which would be in place very soon, Patnaik said.
Similarly, there are 293 fire stations at present and 42 more would be set up very soon, the chief minister said.

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Organisation under the Special Relief Commissioner must be ready with crew for relief operation, while pre-positioning of adequate food materials and other essential commodities in inaccessible flood prone areas must be ensured, he said.
Rural Development and Housing and Urban Development departments must see that necessary prior arrangement for supply of safe drinking water to the flood affected areas is made, Patnaik said.

Health and Family Welfare department has to make necessary advance arrangements to take care of health and hygiene in flood affected areas to prevent outbreak of any epidemic. Similar arrangements must be made by Fisheries and Animal Resources development department, he said.
The chief minister also asked the engineering departments to remain in preparedness for immediate restoration of essential services and public utilities in case of breakdown or damage.
Asking all the departments to have standard operating procedure ready and carry out mock drills to fine tune preparedness, he said "the chief secretary may review this and brief me every week".

The Collectors and officers of different departments at district and field have already been instructed to remain in full preparedness to effectively meet the possible flood situation, the CM said.