A trolley clears post-cyclone debris on a Berhampur road. Picture by Gopal Krishna Reddy

Berhampur, Oct. 18: Removal of broken and uprooted trees from roads is progressing at a snail’s pace even one week after Phailin crossed Ganjam coastline and left a trail of destruction in the city.

The Berhampur Municipal Corporation has a length of 385-km of roads.

Revenue and disaster management minister Surya Narayan Patro had announced that the cleaning job would be over on war footing within 48 hours. Though the deadline ends today, the task has hardly been completed. The state government has deployed some sweeping staff members along with machineries from the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation to speed up the process.

On Sunday morning, the National Disaster Rapid Action Force and the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force team cut down large trees, which were uprooted and fell on roads blocking the stretch.

Bhubaneswar mayor Ananta Narayan Jena, who reached here with 80 sweeping staff members and six hydraulic supportive vehicles two days ago, said: “I have come here with our cleaning employees and machineries to help the clean up task.”

Newly elected mayor of Berhampur K. Madhavi admitted that lack of manpower and machineries had delayed the cleaning task. “We have asked all the 40 councillor to hire one tractor with trolley and 10 labourers to clean the areas of their respective wards,” she said.

“With the active support of all the councillors I expect that the work would be over within four days,” she said yesterday.

City health officer Subhakanta Das said 17 vehicles of the Berhampur civic body, six vehicles of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and the hired tractors were deployed in the cleaning exercise.