Central team to assess Hudhud damage

Bhubaneswar: A Central team led by joint secretary (Home) Gopal Dwivedi will arrive here in the capital tomorrow to make an assessment of the infrastructure damages caused by cyclone Hudhud last month.

Highly placed sources said, the eight-member team will be divided into two groups and visit four badly-ravaged districts to take a stock of the public assets, crops, properties, poultry and marine industry.

These districts are Koraput, Malkangiri, Gajapati and Rayagada.

“After the completion of their two-day tour, the team is scheduled to meet Chief Secretary GC Pati on Wednesday at the secretariat,” an official said.

The very severe cyclonic storm Hudhud that made landfall near Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh on October 12 had severely affected southern and coastal districts of Odisha.

More than 247,000 people in the state were evacuated to safe shelters from the possible cyclone strike zone to save their lives.

As per Odisha government, the damage to electrical infrastructure by Hudhud has been assessed at Rs 104.35 crore.

The cyclone had affected 773,691 electrical consumers, mainly in south Odisha districts like Rayagada, Koraput Gajapati, Nabarangpur and Malkangiri.

The storm ravaged seven power transformers, 1,754 distribution transformers, 1,088 LT (low tension) lines, 2,500 number of 11 KV feeders and 125 number of 33 KV feeders.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has sought an interim assistance of Rs 500 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) to meet the immediate requirement of relief and restoration of damage caused to public infrastructure.