Orissa floods wash away tourism sector's hope

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

The torrential rain, which lashed Orissa a fortnight back, has flooded about five districts in the state. The worst affected of the lot is the Balasore district. The flood killed 16 people and marooned over 10 lakh people in these districts, according to a government report.

Despite the precautions taken well in advance, the district administration could not able to cope up with the demand as the flood caused unexpected damages. What, however, made the life miserable is the disruption of communication at several places. Relief and rescue operations have been hampered because of the large-scale disruption of road and rail network.

The flood caused irreparable damage to the state tourism. With Orissa's heartland cut off from the other parts of the country, thousands of tourists got stranded at various places. In the absence of rail links and road communication, people flocked to Bhubaneswar airport only to find the fares increased manifold and well out of their reach. The situation for those who could afford was no better as flights to the busy sectors like Kolkata and Delhi were booked for days.

Many tourists are going through the same harrowing experience of the 1999 super cyclone when they had to live on the roads without food as the hoteliers had thrown them out. Indian Railways had to face the wrath of the tourists desperate to leave the state. Vandalism by the tourists has been reported from various stations. The West Bengal government evacuated the Bengali tourists by plying additional buses when the road traffic was restored.

"The flood has caused colossal losses to Orissa tourism", says the state tourism director, Rabi Narayan Nanda. "At a time when we were looking for heavy inflow of tourists, the flood has just washed away our expectations," he added.