12 OUTLOOK 1 July 2019
FANI AFTERMATH
Naveen sarkar draws flak over tardy restoration work
Brickbats Trail
The Bouquets
SCARRED BY THE STORM (From left) A power transmitter awaits repairs;
transmission lines being restored in a village; officials arrive at a work siteby Sandeep Sahu in PuriA
month and a half after Cyclone
Fani pounded the Puri coast
on May 3, 15 families are still
living in the primary school at
Nirmala village near Pipli.
Their thatched houses, blown
away in the cyclone, are yet to be reb
uilt. “We don’t know where to go
once the school reopens after the vac
ation,” says one of them. Nirmala is
just one of the scores of villages in
Brahmagiri, Nimapara, Balanga, Sat
yabadi and Konark areas of Puri dis
trict, where the residents, having alr
eady endured most of the summer
without power, are now bracing for
the rains without a proper roof on
their heads. While restoration of live
lihoods does take a long time, here
restoration of something as essential
as power is taking too long. Even
parts of Puri town, the district head
quarters, were yet to get power back
even as late as June 18.
“Of the three sub-stations in our area,
two have been repaired and work is in
progress on the third,” says Bhima Rao,
a resident of Penthakata basti in Puri.
“We have been told that we shall get
power by tonight.” In Balanga area of
Brahmagiri block, less than 10 per cent
of homes got back power, admits an
energy department worker. As one
motors through the area, it’s a familiar
sight of fallen electric poles and wires
strewn all over. In some places, people
have assembled poles on their own, but
have no idea when they will be erected.
“We are running to the electricity office
on a daily basis, but no one is telling us
how long it will take for the supply to be
restored,” says Madhabananda Behera
of Balanga village. The absence of power