Bhubaneswar, Nov. 18: A three-member ministerial team, headed by Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, today visited Kandhamal to make an on-the-spot assessment.

The team flew from Bhubaneswar in the morning and landed at Raikia, one of the worst affected areas of violence, and visited a relief camp set up at St Catherine Girls’ High School. They interacted with the camp’s guests for an hour.

Later, the team visited the kanyashram at Jalespeta, where Laxmananda Saraswati and four of his associates were murdered on the night of August 23. The team spoke to Chaini and Hindu Jagaran Samukhya president and retired IPS officer, Ashok Sahu, who explained the sequence of events that lead to the murder. The team also accepted a memorandum from the organisations.

Later, at Phulbani, the Union ministers spoke to tribal leader Lambodar Kanhar and received a peace memorandum from Phulbani Citizens’ Forum.

Taking to The Telegraph, the special administrator for Kandhamal, M.S. Padhi, said: “They advised us to take steps to build confidence, so that the camp people could go back to where they belong and to expedite development activities under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme,” said the special administrator.

Padhi said as a part of their rehabilitation package more than 1,000 labour intensive projects had been started across villages.

In the evening, addressing a news conference from the NCP office in Bhubaneswar, Pawar said: “In Kandhamal, we saw dire poverty. It’s the poor who have been worst hit in the communal violence.”