BHUBANESWAR: Over a million people in at least 19 districts of Orissa have been hit by flood in the Mahanadi river systems which, with increased volume of water reaching the deltaic head of the State by Saturday night, was set to grip more and more areas in the downstream coastal pockets over the next few days.

Floods triggered by heavy rains over the past week and huge discharge of water from Hirakud dam have killed at least 16 people in Orissa and displaced thousands, an official said Sunday. There were reports of six people being swept away in Nayagarh and Bargarh districts but their dead bodies were yet to be found.
The situation continued to be grim in several places of the affected 19 of the state's 30 districts, forcing the authorities to press into service three helicopters Sunday to drop food packets.

The census of India’s poor began on June 29 in Tripura, in the Northeast, with a methodology Jairam Ramesh, who was made Union rural development minister in the recent reshuffle, didn’t get a chance to contribute to. It has some improvements over the method followed in the previous census, but the key contradictions in the process of identifying the poor continue.

BARIPADA: Magsaysay award winner Rajendra Singh Rana, also known as the Waterman of India, will launch a mass movement against river-linking projects in the State on Tuesday at Rangmatia village under Rasgovindpur block in Mayurbhanj district.

The movement will apprise the locals on environmental impact of the proposed project to link Subarnarekha and Jambhira rivers to facilitate a multi-crore irrigation project.  “Rangmatia was the chosen venue because of its proximity to both the rivers,” said noted Gandhian Aditya Patnaik.

BHUBANESWAR: The State Government will speed up land acquisition to expedite national highway (NH) projects.

LUCKNOW: The energy task force (ETF) headed by the chief secretary gave its nod to the establishment of a 1,980 mw power plant in Bargarh (Chitrakoot) on Friday. For this the state government would sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bajaj Hindustan.

The ETF also looked into the possibilities of the project's expansion by adding another 1,980 mw.

BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has decided to sink 2,000 more borewells for extending irrigation facilities to cultivable land in Padampur sub-division of Bargarh district, one of the perennially drought-prone areas of Orissa.

A decision to this effect was taken at a high-level meeting presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the Secretariat here today.

SAMBALPUR: The first spell of flood waters received by Hirakud dam from upstream will be released on Wednesday at 11 a.m. The flood water will be released after performing certain rituals as has been the practice since inception of the dam. Although water level in the dam had come down to 599.73 feet on Thursday, it shot up to 604.23 feet this afternoon.

BHUBANESWAR: Though the gender gap in literacy levels has been declining faster over the years, there are wide gaps in literacy levels across social groups and districts in the State.