Several Orissa hamlets still marooned

By Prafulla Das

JAJPUR, JULY 25. There is not a single road to the flood-hit Bari Block in Jajpur district of Orissa - all roads leading to the area has been under water for more than 10 days.

All the 105 villages in Bari are surrounded by water. The area has already witnessed four spells of flood. One can reach the marooned hamlets only in a boat.

The lone telephone at the block headquarters is out of order for the past several days. To keep in touch with the district headquarters at Jajpur town, about 35 km away, the officials are using the communication system available with the police and a telephone still working at a public booth nearby.

After the fourth and worst spell of flood on Tuesday, one has to cover a longer distance by boat to reach Bari. Till Monday, one was able to reach Bari Mound by a boat, covering a distance of 12 km from Kuakhia side. But by Tuesday afternoon, the entire Bari- Kuakhia Road was submerged and now one has to cover a distance of 25 km to reach Bari Mound, from where relief material transported from Kuakhia is being sent to far off villages in small boats.

The district authorities are working round-the-clock and the Government machinery has been stretched to the maximum. Yet, they have not been able to ensure flow of adequate relief material to the affected villages, mainly because of shortage of boats.

Apart from making use of the Army boats and some power boats available with them, the authorities have requisitioned country boats owned by the villagers for relief and rescue work. But all these boats put together are not enough to cope with the situation. They are still procuring boats from some not-so-badly- hit districts and Andhra Pradesh.

Bari is not the only area that has been fighting the flood during the past several days. Similar is the situation in several other blocks of Jajpur and neigbouring Kendrapara district, where the flood situation continues to be critical due to heavy floods in the Brahmani river system.

In Bhubaneswar, the State Government patted itself on the back on Wednesday afternoon for handling the situation well. Even as lakhs of people were still trapped and were waiting for food, medicines, drinking water and tents, all that the top officials said was that they had enough resources to carry on relief and rescue operation. So far, a large number of people in Jajpur and Kendrapara have received nothing more than a few kg of rice distributed through the Gram Panchayats a few days ago. Air- dropping of food packets has not been possible in several pockets.

While the officials at the ground level are finding it tough to cope with the situation caused by the prolonged flood, little help has come from the hundreds of voluntary agencies operating in the State.

In the case of Bari, the district authorities have tried their best to provide help to the people by positioning senior officials at the panchayat level for overseeing the relief and rescue operation. However, a majority of these officials are not able to keep in touch with the district headquarters. Absence of a communication network is a major hurdle.

The water level of Brahmani, which touched its peak at Jenapur gauge station around 10 a.m. today, had started receding slowing by afternoon. But water was being released continuously from the Rengali reservoir upstream to keep the dam out of danger.

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