Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today directed all departments and the district collectors to remain fully prepared to tackle a possible flood situation in the state.
“The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted surplus rainfall during the current year 2016. Therefore, probability of flood this year appears very high. Keeping this in view, we have to remain in full state of preparedness to encounter flood situation,” Patnaik said while presiding over the state level natural calamity meeting at the State Secretariat here.
Stating that all breaches in the embankments have been fixed, he directed the Water Resources department to ensure that adequate flood fighting materials are stored near weak and vulnerable points on the river embankments and watch and ward arrangement is made during flood. He also asked the department to get the certificates from the concerned engineers regarding this.
Talking about rescue and relief operations, the chief minister said apart from 10 functional Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) units, the government has created an additional 10 units, which would be ready for operations very soon. "Besides, there are 293 Fire Stations at present and 42 more stations shall be set up very soo. These stations must be kept in readiness for deployment to undertake rescue and relief operations in the event of flood as first responder,” Patnaik noted.
He said the boats available with the State Port Engineering Organisation under the Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) must also be ready with crew to undertake relief operations.
The chief minister directed the Food Supplies & Consumer Welfare Department to ensure pre-positioning of adequate food materials and other essential commodities in inaccessible flood-prone areas and the Rural Development department and Housing and Urban Development department to ensure necessary prior arrangement for supply of safe drinking water to the flood-hit areas.
While the Health and Family Welfare department was asked to make necessary advance arrangements to take care of health and hygiene in flood affected areas to prevent outbreak of epidemics, the the Fisheries and Animal Resources Development department was asked to make arrangements for the animal population.
The chief minister also directed the engineering departments to remain in preparedness for immediate restoration of essential services and public utilities in case of breakdown or damage.
He directed each department to have its standard operating procedure (SOP) ready and carry out mock drills to fine tune preparedness.
He asked the chief secretary to brief him about the disaster preparedness of all departments every week.
Stating that the state had experienced various natural disasters, including severe drought, last year as a result of which more than 29000 villages in 233 blocks of 27 districts were affected, Patnaik said the state government has taken a number of steps to manage the drought situation.
“The state government has provided RS 826 crore to the district collectors for disbursement of agriculture input subsidy to the affected farmers and asked them to complete the disbursement by the end of July this year,” he added.