Odisha on Monday asked the central government to give it a long-term assistance of Rs 17,000 crore to manage natural disasters, four days after severe cyclonic storm Fani killed 38 people and destroyed power and telecom infrastructure.

Odisha is routinely pummeled by cyclones that cause massive loss to infrastructure. A super cyclone in October 1999 killed 10,000 people, damaged thousands of houses and set back the state by many years.

Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik sought the financial assistance during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Puri and Khurda, the districts worst affected by Fani

Patnaik urged the Centre to give Odisha Rs 10,000 crore for building permanent anti-calamity power infrastructure along the coast and Rs 7000 crore for building half a million houses, suggesting that funding be apportioned between the Centre and state 90:10.

"India stands in solidarity with the people of Odisha, said Modi on Twitter, announcing the centre will give Rs. 1000 crore to the state government.

“Naveen babu has done a good planning”, Modi told reporters in Bhubaneswar, referring to the chief minister.

Odisha evacuated 1.2 million people for Fani, but the lack of manpower is impeding restoration Against the requirement of about 10,000 workers, only 4000 are engaged in the restoration activities. While the state government has already mobilised personnel from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, it is in the process of sourcing more manpower from these states.

For attracting more workers from within the state and outside, the Odisha government has notified 1.5 times of prescribed wage rate for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labourers in cyclone restoration work. Food wage of Rs 150 per person per day is also offered.

In the absence of power supply, people are facing huge problem in sourcing of water in urban clusters and villages for drinking and other purposes. With collapse of 1,56,000 electric poles and damage to 5030 kilometers (kms) of 33 KV lines, 38613 kms of 11 KV lines, 11077 the complete restoration of power network may take weeks.

While connectivity of towns with the national highways and state highways has been partially restored, the roads in Puri and Bhubaneswar are still littered with the rubble of toppled trees and razed electric poles. The unattended debris is causing inconvenience to the people in their day-to-day commute.

Meanwhile, normalcy has been restored at Paradip port.