The Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) has been honoured with the coveted SKOCH award for 2018 for its remarkable achievements in the field of disaster management at the 56th SKOTCH Summit at New Delhi on February 25, 2019. The Skoch award covers the best efforts in the areas of finance, governance, banking, disaster management, technology, economics and inclusive growth. The OSDMA received an Order-of-merit in the Gold category for constructing 879 multipurpose cyclone and flood shelters that played a key role in saving human lives during Cyclone Phailin in 2013. It also bagged an 'Order-of-merit' in the silver category for constructing disaster resilient houses for about 17,000 Phailin affected families by relocating them to safer places. The 'Order-of-merit' Bronze was given to the OSDMA for its Early Warning Dissemination System for different hydro-meteorological disasters across the coastline of Odisha which will benefit 1,205 villages in 22 blocks of six coastal districts.
