The Special Relief Organization has been created under the Board of Revenue in 1965-66 for relief and rescue operation during and after occurrence of various natural calamities. Now it is functioning as a composite department after integration with the Revenue and Disaster Management Department. Since its inception to the present day, the scope of Relief Organization has been diversified. Now it deals with disaster management i.e. responsibility of prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, relief and rehabilitation in connection with natural disasters. It co-ordinates with districts/departments for quick relief and rescue operation, reconstruction and rehabilitation work. It also promotes disaster preparedness at all levels in the State with the assistance of Odisha Disaster Mitigation Authority (OSDMA). Quick response in the natural calamities is the hall-mark of Special Relief Organization. The State Emergency Operation Centre is functioning round the clock at Rajiv Bhawan, Bhubaneswar with state of art communication net-work

The Organization is headed by the Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) who exercises all administrative and financial powers as Secretary to Government, Disaster Management. He is assisted by a group of experienced officers and staff. During any natural disaster, the office functions round the clock in an emergency mode.

The state being one of the most vulnerable to various natural disasters has encountered one or other severe calamities each year since 1994. Recurrence of repeated disasters has no doubt negated the developmental progress in the state. But Special Relief Organisation is striving hard to mitigate the impact of such disasters and keep the loss of life and property to the minimum through quick response mechanism. Since supercyclone'99 a paradigm shift has been made in the approach to disaster management and auto triggered response mechanism has been put to place from GP level to State level. The result of this has been felt during the recent years.

• He shall have authority to call for any information from any Heads of the Department or from field officers of any Department and shall periodically review and coordinate the activities of relief operations if he considers it necessary in the interest of relief operation.
• He shall have the authority to requisition the services of Gazetted and non-gazetted officers working in the affected areas for administrating urgent relief measures.
• He shall have full powers to sanction detailed schemes approved in principle within the Relief Budget and SDRF & NDRF norms.
• He shall exercise full powers to prescribe the headquarters of a Gazetted Government servant employed on relief work.
• He shall have authority to empower the Collectors of the affected districts to requisition vehicles of other Departments, whenever needed for efficient execution of relief operation. The concerned Collectors may also be empowered by him to requisition vehicles of the private parities if the situation so demands, on payment of hire charges at the rate paid by the Home (Election) Department, while requisitioning such vehicles for purpose of conducting elections.

The activities of Special Relief Organization extend to the following natural calamities.

• To remain in preparedness to meet the contingencies arising out of the above calamities and to arrange relief measures
• To supervise and to provide funds for the rescue and relief operations.
• To monitor repair/restoration and rehabilitation work of the damaged properties and habitation.
• To undertake long-term measures by coordinating the activities of different Departments in order to minimize the impact of natural calamities and human causalities.
• To constantly monitor the daily rainfall recording of 30 districts through-out the year.
• To monitor hunger and starvation in any part of the state due to food scarcity on account of any severe natural disaster.
• The State Port Engineer who works under the SRC looks after maintenance and deployment of power boats stationed in all the districts for relief and rescue operation during floods.

In order to achieve the above objectives, as per recommendation of the 14th Finance Commission a corpus fund, viz "State Disaster Response Fund" (SDRF) has been constituted at state level with the sharing of Central and State Government with a ratio of 75:25 respectively. The fund is administered by a Committee named as State Executive Committee (SEC) under the Chairmanship of Chief Secretary, Odisha. Special Relief Commissioner is the member-convener of State Executive Committee. Specific guidelines and norms are issued by Government of India in consultation with the State Government from time to time for incurring expenditure for different calamity measures out of SDRF to combat the above approved natural disasters.

At the time of occurrence of any calamity of rare severity in nature, Govt. of India after assessing the gravity of loss and damages, sanctions funds out of National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) for undertaking relief and rehabilitation measures by the State Govt. The State Executive Committee decides on all matters relating to expenditure from SDRF and Special Assistance received from Government of India under NDRF.

At present the following officers are in position in Special Relief Organisation.

SL NO	Position	Name
1	Special Relief Commissioner & Additional Chief Secretary to Govt.	Shri Deoranjan Kumar Singh, IAS
2	Additional Special Relief Commissioner	Shri Padmanav Behera, OAS
3	Additional Special Relief Commissioner	Shri Mitrabhanu Mahapatra, IPS
4	Additional Special Relief Commissioner	Smt. Atasi Das, OAS
5	FA-cum-Additional Secretary	Shri Sidharth Shankar Acharya, OFS
6	Joint Special Relief Commissioner	Shri Ashish Kumar Jena, OAS
7	Joint Special Relief Commissioner	vacant
8	Deputy Secretary & OSD	Shri Biswanath Sahoo, OAS
9	Deputy Secretary	Shri Gopinath Saraka, OAS
10	OSD	Smt. Suranjika Behera, OAS
11	OSD	Shri Shyamal Kumar Das, OAS
12	OSD	Shri Mayuresh Panda, ORS
13	State Port Engineer	Er. Sarat Parida
14	Asst. Executive Engineer	Er. Ramesh Ch. Behera