By T.S.V. Hari, IANS
Vailankanni (Tamil Nadu) : Three years after cataclysm paid a visit to this seaside town, real and complete rehabilitation is still a far cry.
The salesmen in the rows of shops selling knick-knacks in an avenue that leads to the Bay of Bengal from a magnificent basilica about 150 metres from the sea loudly remind their clientele that on Dec 26, 2004 wholesale death in the form of swirling salty waters had nearly obliterated them.
Named after Mother Mary and referred to as Our Lady of Good Health, this milk white structure was left untouched by the Boxing Day tsunami. But the tragedy in its vicinity is announced by the presence of several rows of photographs on an acrylic hoarding nearby as a memoriam for the dead.
Commerce, clientele and cash have returned to this compendium of lodging houses that serve the devout, thanks to voluntary agencies and NGOs. But many denizens of the neighbourhood aren’t as lucky.
While the world at large was willing to share its munificence with the poor and the needy here, bureaucratic red tape ensured that at least 50 percent of the victims remain without rehabilitation.
The first brick is yet to be cemented to create houses for more than 14,000 people drawn from families of fishermen, Dalits and other underprivileged sections of the society.
According to UN statistics, out of 53,291 houses to be built in Tamil Nadu by NGOs as part of their rehabilitation endeavour, only 31,376 have been completed. Further, only 29,600 new homes have inhabitants.
Out of the over 15,400 homes yet to be built, 14,433 are supposed to come up in urban locations. The state government has indicated that succour would reach those living in makeshift residences a little over eight months from now.
These statistics pertain only to the first phase of rehabilitation. In the second phase, the government’s attempt to built 52,569 houses along the Tamil Nadu coast is yet to go beyond the drawing board stage. The centre had set aside Rs.5.52 billion for this almost two years ago. The project is now scheduled to be completed by March 2009.
“Progress has been slow. The government faced the dilemma of ensuring that people are not displaced to places far away from their earlier habitat and livelihood. In several instances, land not suitable for house construction was identified (for rehabilitation),” a UN report said.
The UN also faulted the bureaucracy and said the greed of contractors had resulted in delay in the provision of basic infrastructure such as water, sanitation and electricity to already completed homes, which were poorly built in the first place.
A People’s Tribunal pointed out that “relief work has been used an opportunity to exploit the people”.
Retired Mumbai High Court judge H. Suresh, one of the members of the tribunal, said he was astonished that tsunami survivors were still living in temporary shelters three years after the disaster.
“The present condition of the tsunami survivors is a clear violation of their right to live under Article 21 of the Constitution,” he said.
Yet, life goes on almost uninterrupted.
Thousand who gathered here for Christmas Tuesday were grateful that this part of the world was spared the bigger losses suffered by Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
Shripad Shelar, 53, a pilgrim from Mumbai who had purchased a DVD showing pictures of the tsunami battering the various coasts in Asia for Rs.150 from one of the shops here, said: “More lives were lost abroad. Thanks to NGOs, some of the poor here have a better life than their counterparts in other parts of our continent – especially in Indonesia and Sri Lanka.”
Kamalakkannan, a septuagenarian tourist from New Delhi, said: “Despite having suffered due to the tsunami and the recent rains that battered Tamil Nadu, the people here are content, something we don’t see in north India.”
Nearly 80,000 hectares of crops were lost to the fury of the rains in this central region of Tamil Nadu only a week ago.