Partners in rebuilding

Cuddalore district, which has seen an active presence of NGOs, perhaps best demonstrates the public-private partnership model for rebuilding tsunami-hit areas. It has produced some results, but not all are happy with this model.

V. SRIDHAR in Cuddalore

LIFE along Tamil Nadu's Cuddalore coast cannot be termed normal one year after the tsunami, but it is not at a standstill either. House-building is on at a frenetic pace in the district, one of the four most severely affected in the State. But livelihoods remain in a precarious state. Although boats have been distributed in the district, fishing activity continues to be disrupted seriously. First the tsunami, and then the recent floods and rough seas, made fishing possible only for five months in the past year.

There is general appreciation of the government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for their handling of the relief and rehabilitation operations, but fears remain about how far they will go and for how long. Those who have been left out of the ambit of the operations are particularly sceptical. There are also fears that their exclusion may lead to an increase in social tensions among the fisherfolk.

Construction of houses is the most visible activity along the coast. The State government has put in place a public-private partnership model and, based on an official enumeration made immediately after the tsunami, 2,322 houses are being built in the district using this model. While the government has generally purchased or offered the land (about 115 acres or 46 hectares), NGOs are building most of the houses. The government will provide most of the basic infrastructure - sewerage, water supply, roads, electricity and other public facilities. About 400 houses have been handed over to the beneficiaries; the remaining will be completed by April 2006.

Cuddalore District Collector Gagandeep Singh Bedi said he anticipated an increase in "social tensions" because not all were entitled to relief. He said: "The houses of people living very close to the shore were destroyed by the tsunami. They were eligible for new houses, each built at a cost of about Rs.1.5 lakhs. Those living in houses a little further inland, but in very poor structures, were not entitled to any relief. I anticipated that there would be heartburning in this section. That is why we are building 1,679 houses for sections of people not directly affected by the tsunami." A heart-warming aspect is that 326 houses are being built for Irula tribal families in the district. Meanwhile, more than 2,000 families continue to be housed in temporary shelters.

IN Devanampattinam, the biggest fishing village in the State, where more than 100 persons died, 648 new houses are being built for the affected families. Muthukumar (30), a fisherman, lives with his family of four in a poorly built structure that has been his home for nearly a year. The walls are made of bitumen-coated sheets and a roof made of asbestos, while a thin metal sheet passes for the front door of the house, which is still damp after the recent rain and floods.

The rows of houses are about eight feet apart and this space turned into an open drain during the floods. Muthukumar's wife Gunaselvi complains that her two children suffer repeated bouts of cold and fever. "The stench is horrible and living here is unbearable," she says. People in the temporary shelters said they ran for cover when it rained and sought shelter in the homes of relatives and friends in the village or at the government-run school.

Muthukumar said he had been "promised" Rs.40,000 to repair his boat, but he received only Rs.25,000. "I am virtually blind because I am illiterate, but I insist on sending my two girls to the kindergarten run by the panchayat leader of the village," he said. His resolve to educate his girls was strengthened by the loss of his four-year-old son to the tsunami. He said that although most of the adult population in the village is illiterate, most people now send their children to school. Although his earnings from fishing have been erratic, Muthukumar has found work at the housing site, where he is paid about Rs.110 a day. This probably also reflects the shortage of labour for construction work during this period of hectic building activity.

The Pondicherry Multipurpose Social Service Society (PMSSS) is the NGO that is building the houses. It has distributed catamarans, fibre-reinforced plastic boats (some fitted with outboard engines) and nets, apart from repairing fishing equipment.

Henry Lawrence, the PMSSS area coordinator, said that during the relief operations it was evident that several social categories "felt excluded" from the relief and rehabilitation process. He said the Vanniars, for instance, who depended mostly on inland fisheries, were also affected; so also were the Scheduled Castes such as the Valluvars, who use throw-nets for fishing.

He said the PMSSS had conducted various activities not traditionally known to these communities, in order to enhance their earning capacity. For instance, school- and college-going children were taught to handle computers. About 160 women were trained in tailoring and another 120 are undergoing training. Many of them were now supplying stitched fabric for a garment export unit based in Pondicherry. The NGO has also organised several self-help groups (SHGs) to make and trade products such as prawn pickles or to set up idly shops in the village. Lawrence said that women were increasingly active in the panchayat after the tsunami.

The village of Chittarapettai, with about 300 families, is divided over the allotment of houses built by an NGO. Although the 45 houses are ready, the people do not want to move in because they feel that everyone in the village ought to have a new house. Ayyanarappan (40) asked: "All the houses here are in a poor state. How can the government differentiate?" After the tsunami, 20 boats were distributed in the ratio of five persons a boat. He said this was not enough and the community decided that 15 persons would share each new boat. The villagers also said that a nationalised bank offered them loans to rebuild damaged boats and to buy new ones. However, they complained that they could not avail themselves of the subsidy scheme offered by the State fisheries cooperative because the bank insisted on claiming the first charge on any money disbursed by the cooperative.

Ayyanarappan said the village had not fished since Deepavali because of the recent floods and rough seas. He also said that they did not get any relief from the government, while an NGO had given them 10 kg of rice and other provisions. Most of the 12 SHGs in the village, which had access to loans of Rs.3,000 each, used the money to repair fishing nets or to buy new ones. "We do not know anything else other than fishing," he said. He also complained that the nearest ration shop was more than 3 km away. "The shop should be here so that those running it are accountable to us," he said.

In Chinnur (south), too, people complained of a shortage of housing. An NGO is building 35 houses in the village. The panchayat leader, K. Kannan, said the village needed at least 100 more so that everyone had a decent house. He also confirmed the general impression that there was no serious shortage of boats in the district. Gagandeep Singh Bedi said the NGO would build 18 more houses in the village. People also complained that 40 families did not have ration cards.

In Pillumedu, near the Pitchavaram mangrove forest, about 82 families (365 people) were forced to shift to another village from their temporary shelters following the recent heavy rains. Sakthivel, an activist of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) in the village told Frontline that many houses had been under four feet of water. Their old houses were 10-15 metres from the sea, but the new ones were situated much further inland. The fishermen now have to go through the backwaters to reach the sea.

Sakthivel said fishermen now had to take the "permission" of the Forest Department, which regulates entry through the mangroves, to reach the sea. The timings prescribed by the Department were not convenient for fishing, he added. "They allow us only between 5 a.m. and 6 p.m., whereas we are used to fishing until at least 10 in the night, or even overnight."

Govindan, the panchayat leader of Pillumedu, said the effluent discharged from shrimp farms located near the village had affected fishing. He said the old settlement, which was located between the backwaters and the sea, had no amenities. It did not have electricity, access to markets was difficult, children faced great difficulty going to school and there was no medical facility nearby. After the new settlement is complete, these problems would be solved. But fishing activity would suffer because access to the sea would become difficult for the community, he said.

The island of MGR Thittu, home to a relatively affluent set of fishermen, is now deserted. More than 80 persons in the settlement died and the remaining population has shifted to the shore to a settlement which is also called MGR Thittu. An NGO is building 179 houses there. Kuttiandasamy (40) said that although this would suffice for now, the needs of the community in the future appeared to have been ignored. "In our community there are only nuclear families. When our children marry they will need to move out. I do not know whether there is space for new houses in the new settlement." He also complained that the quality of construction "does not appear very good".

WHILE there is a general air of hope in the community, there are also fears about the effect of NGOs on civil society. Gagandeep Singh Bedi believes that the "NGO model is an ideal model and can be replicated". He argued that by engaging NGOs the government did not get "bogged down in the task of building activity". "The NGO-government partnership," he said, "is the way to go."

However, D. Rajaram, veteran Kisan Sabha leader in Chidambaram taluk, has a more variegated perception. He pointed to the serious consequences arising out of the marginalisation of political parties in the aftermath of the tsunami. The fisherfolk, particularly the youth, he said, "are not eager to demand or fight for what ought to be legitimately theirs". That, he said, was also convenient for the ruling party. He also said the "easy money" flowing into the district was having deleterious consequences. The dependence on NGOs for housing had also reduced drastically the State's duty as a provider of basic infrastructure such as housing. Rajaram said this "government-less approach" to development could lead to significant disempowering of the community.

But Rajaram is not without hope. He said the entry of NGOs represented the first significant sustained external influence in the hitherto isolated and marginalised fishing community. Their entry had also induced changes. There was, for instance, a passionate desire to educate children. Also, but for them the other communities such as Dalits and Irulas would not have benefited, he said.