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'Reconstruction mela? of Nagai |
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Geophysical Disasters -
Tsunami 2004 Recovery News in India
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Monday, 22 August 2005 |
The small coastal town of Nagapattinam razed to the ground in the December tsunami is witnessing a construction boom. One of the worst affected districts, it is now seeing unprecedented construction activity as a large number of houses are being built as permanent homes for the tsunami-affected, writes Revathi R, Indiadisasters.org, Nagapattinam, Tuesday, August 23, 2005 at http://www.indiadisasters.org/
Forwarded by Kim Mullard 300805.
Out of the 1.2-to 1.5-lakh permanent houses needed according to government estimates, 60,000 houses are being built in the first phase. In Nagapattinam,
20,000 houses are to be built. According to the district collector J.Radhakrishnan,
1,500 houses are under various stages of construction. The collector has asked the NGOs involved to expedite the building process.
Nagapattinam?s construction market is hectic with contractors flooding for quotations and NGOs vying to be the first ones to present the first set of permanent homes.
The seeming activity is deceptive. For the hordes of construction workers and
agricultural laborers who lost their livelihood after the tsunami, the construction boom is a very big disappointment. Much to their sorrow, the boom has not translated into jobs and hence food for them.
Despite extensive demands by trade unions and agricultural labour movements and some NGOs, the tsunami rehabilitation reconstruction programme does not employ local labour.
Construction for permanent shelters has started atleast in six places and Samanthanpettai is one of the places where construction started first. The Mata Amritanandamayi Trust is building 350 permanent shelters here.The din of the construction activities can be heard from afar as one comes to the totally inadequate oven-like temporary shelters provided by the Trust for the residents of Samanthapettai.
As one nears the site it?s almost like coming to a prohibited zone. People rush around asking your purpose of visit. Taking photographs is a strict no-no without permission from higher ups. But there is a lot to see as one awaits the required permission.
Meanwhile all over Nagapattinam, individuals and also many NGOs have started the brick kiln business hoping that they?ll sell those bricks for the reconstruction work. The Amritanandmayi Trust on the other hand has imported brand new solid block making machines which are churning out loads and loads of solid blocks.
The permanent houses seem structurally good and well designed. ?We have Professor Aravindan from IIT Chennai as our structural consultant,? says Brahmachari Mohana Chandran., the higher up whose permission was required to take photographs.
A casual walk through the construction process reveals that most of the laborers are non-locals. ?We are 25 people working here from neighbouring villages,? says Mohammed Sathik of Pazhayanur village.
?More than 1000 laborers are working and we are providing them with shelter and food and are paying rupees hundred as wage per day,? says Brahmachari. Sudhi who is the site incharge. ?Most of the laborers are from Kerala and Orissa,? adds Mohammed Sathik. Even before he completes his sentence a Math volunteer comes to stop our conversation saying that we should question the in-charge and not the laborers directly.
In Nagapattinam there are more than 10,000 skilled construction workers.The single crop pattern and continuous drought of three years forced them to depend on construction labour for succor. When the tsunami wiped out many lives and families, it also killed the coastal economy and real estate and construction industry took a nosedive.
The district administration gave compensation to more than 45,000 families who lost their livelihood in the tsunami. Most of these people still don?t have jobs other than the NGO-sponsored cash for work programmes which have mostly come to an end.
On many occasions the district administration has gone on record saying that the livelihood crisis of the non-fishing communities would be addressed by training them in construction work and providing them transport to the reconstruction sites. But the reality is different.
At another reconstruction site in Thazhampettai in Tarangampadi taluk ,local workers are being used. But in both these areas the community participation is almost nil.
Some women residents of Samanthanpettai say, ?We have seen the picture of the house (which is on a vinyl poster in front of the site). We have to go into permanent houses soon we can?t stay in these sheds anymore.? They really don?t know about any efforts to involve the community in designing and constructing the houses.
M Subbu of the Tamil Manila Kattida Thozhilalar Sangam (Tamil Nadu construction worker?s union) calls it unethical to bring in labour from outside when thousands of construction workers in the Nagapattinam district itself have lost livelihoods and equipments due to the tsunami.
Why labourers from outside? ?The need for speedy construction,? Subbu says?, ?they have no principles. Giving people their own houses as fast as possible is important. But the process is also important and such large-scale public spending has to bring about overall progress and development.?
Subbu, who is also part of the Construction Workers Building Center (CWBC) which has built temporary shelters in Nagai with innovative local material using local labor, says that the CWBC is ready and willing to upgrade skills of local laborers, suggest indigenous alternative construction material. ? In this region there are not many brick chambers only country bricks are available. We have developed a mud stabilized brick which will be good.?
While the government talks incessantly about involving NGOs and NGOs talk relentlessly about community capacity building, the affected community which is going to live in the permanent houses and the laborers who have enough skills to build these houses are just mute spectators of the ?reconstruction mela?.(indiadisasters, August 23, 2005)
posted by CHALLENGES at 6:32 PM
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