Naveen visit flood hits people in Balianta Block

Balianta/Bhubaneswar:(visakeo) As politics over Orissa floods reaching at its climax, Chief Minister, who earlier took airway to see the plights of flood, hit people, on Friday found moving around few flood hits areas on foot, neighbouring the State Capital.







The Chief Minister walked down to temporary shelters installed on National Highway No-203 connecting Bhubaneswar to Puri and enquired about their problems and later visited Balianta block. BJD MLA Sashibhuan Behera and Khurda Collector NC Jena helped the Chief Minister in getting proper root to reach out the marooned.







The people in Balianta block apprised the Chief Minister about the ground realities and sought his personal intervention into the relief and rescue operations. Chief Minister heard flood victims very patiently and assured them for all help.







Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition JB Patnaik, not missed the Good Friday, he along with few of his supporters distributed foods among flood victims in Pipili and few other areas. The former Chief Minister however alleged that due to mismanagement in relief work, hundreds of marooned still crying for foods.







However, the flood situation in Mahanadi deltaic region was grim as receding waters exposed the miseries of nearly 42 lakh-affected people and fragile relief machinery.







As the death toll due to the deluge stood at 56, trails of destruction could be seen in the worst-affected Kendrapara, Cuttack, Jagatgsinghpur and Puri districts where at least 240 breaches on embankments still left eight lakh people marooned, official sources said.







With flood waters sweeping away villages, the agony of those affected compounded in the absence of adequate relief material, drinking water, clothes and polythene sheets, they said.







While the number of districts hit by floods rose to 19 including Nuapada, the number of villages completely marooned by floods increased to 871, they said. About 26,000 people in some villages of Delang area of Puri district and around 15,000 at Kujang area in Jagatsinghpur were yet to get relief, he said.







In a bid to ensure speedy rehabilitation of the affected people, Chief Minister Patnaik has asked the officials to complete assessment of the extent of damage caused to houses by the floods within 15 days.







Farmers were hit hard as about five-lakh hectare of crop area was submerged while the gushing floodwaters breached several roads at over 900 points, severely affecting road communications.