A week after cyclone Fani battered Odisha, the capital city, Bhubaneswar, is still groping in the dark, or at least most parts of the city are, as power supply has not been fully restored. According to the authorities, full restoration of power may take three days more. The cyclone hit the Odisha coast near Puri last Friday.

According to the Odisha Information and Public Relations Secretary, Sanjay Singh, water supply has been restored in the Fani-hit areas of Bhubaneswar, Puri, Cuttack, Khurda, Nimapara and Konark.

The lack of skilled workers is hampering power restoration work and 5,000 workers have been brought from West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to assist in the power restoration work.

According to him, of 58,000 power connections under the BCDD-1 division in Bhubaneswar, 37,000 had been reconnected and power restored to them; under BCDD-2, power had been restored to 33,000 of 97,000 connections; and under the Bhubaneswar electrical division, power had been restored to 16,000 out of 78,000 connections. It may be possible to restore power to all connections by May 12 or so.

Even though Net connectivity has been restored, bank branches and ATMs were unable to function in many areas for want of power. In Puri, of 239 branches, 60 are functional, and only 20 out of 273 ATMs are operational. In Cuttack, of 422 branches, 260 are functioning, while162 out of 593 ATMs are functioning. In Khurda district, of 707 branches, 372 are functioning, and only 197 ATMs out of a total of 1,164 are operational.

The state government has convened a state-level bankers' meeting to discuss the problem and ensure that all bank branches and ATMs are functional as soon as possible. Most of the branches are being run on diesel generator sets.

Some of the units in the Bhubaneswar IT special economic zone have started functioning, but only in day shifts, it is learnt.

The official death toll in the cyclone has been put at 41 and more than 1.5 crore people have been affected by it. The poultry sector has taken a huge hit, with more than 20 lakh birds perishing in the cyclone.

A central team is to visit the state soon to assess the total damage. The Prime Minister has announced Rs 1,000 crore as immediate central assistance for relief. Earlier, Rs 300 crore was released for relief.

According to J.P Mishra, the Chief Public Relations Officer of the East Coast Railway (ECOR), train services have been restored on the affected routes.

The state government is supplying rice and other essentials to the affected people in villages and slum areas in towns.

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