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33 Soc. Change 1 (2003)

handle is hein.journals/sclcnge33 and id is 1 raw text is: 1-25 Social Change : March 2003 : Vol. 33 No. 1 Disaster management and the need for convergence of services of welfare agencies - A case study of the Super Cyclone of Orissa Nilakantha Panigrahi* The visible responses of welfare agencies to the Orissa Super Cyclone are profiled in terms of preparedness, coverage of affected area and population, and appropriateness of relief and rehabilitation programmes, and a case is made out for disaster management through convergence of the services of various welfare agencies of the State. On an optimistic note, field perspectives attest to solidarity across caste, class and community lines in times of crises, and indications are that the distribution of relief was by and large smooth when carried out with the help of panchayati raj institutions. DISASTERS ARE UNEXPECTED events that not only claim lives but also result in huge damage. A few notable disasters in the Indian context are the Bhopal Chemical disaster which took 16,000 lives and affected almost 2 lakh people with various incurable diseases (Sarangi 1995); floods in Jalapaigudi, West Bengal (Lieten et.al 1995) and in Bihar (Mishra 1947) and earthquakes in Uttarkashi, Latur, Gujarat, and the one that shook the Koyana dam near Pune (Viswanathanl991). According to one stock-taking of the magnitude of loss from natural calamities in India, from April 1998 to March 1999, the damage covered around 61, 373 villages in 290 districts and 10.01 million hectares. 51.32 million people were affected, 6.81 million hectares of crop areas and 14,77,861 of huts /houses suffered damage, and 4855 human and 91, 912 animal lives were lost (Rajya Sabha 1998). These are the tragic faces of disaster, which draw attention to issues of rehabilitation. In this paper we focus on the case of the Super Cyclone of Orissa and try to evaluate the responses of various welfare agencies in terms of preparedness, coverage of affected area and people, and coherence maintained while undertaking relief and rehabilitation programmes. • Faculty in Social Anthropology, NKC Centre For Development Studies, (ICSSR Centre), Bhubaneswar-751013 E-mail: ncds@ori.nic.in.