TSUNAMI IMPACT:
In Tamil Nadu, Ask for Bread and Get a Bakery
Satya Sivaraman
CHENNAI, India, Jan 10 (IPS) - An outpouring of national and global sympathy, which has produced an unprecedented
inflow of funds and emergency relief supplies to help affected populations in the tsunami-
struck southern Indian province of Tamil Nadu, might all go to waste due to the
inexperience of local groups in dealing with post-disaster situations.
The lack of coordination on the ground is resulting in duplication of efforts, poor
targeting and in some cases even diversion of relief materials to the wrong people.
Local television channels show roadsides littered with tonnes of donated used clothes,
cooked food turned stale piling up in garbage bins and private do-gooders rushing about
from village to village in the affected areas, often repeating work already completed.
A recent coordination meeting, in the provincial capital Chennai, of organisations
carrying out relief operations, heard stories of multiple groups coming to the aid of the
same community and even a discussion on the need for a mechanism to preclude the
possibility of different medical teams giving immunisation shots to the same people.
''The need to help is overwhelming the need for help,'' said Sushma Iyengar of Abhiyan,
a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that is working in Nagapattinam, 500 kilometers
south of Chennai, where over 5,925 people lost their lives and entire settlements were
leveled to the ground by the Dec. 26 tsunami.
Currently there are around 150 NGOs engaged in relief operations alongside
government agencies in coastal Tamil Nadu, where a total of at least 7,941 died when
killer waves struck, spawned by a 9.0 undersea quake just off the northern tip of
Indonesia's Sumatra island.
Tamil Nadu, with its 1024 kilometer long coastline, is the most devastated Indian state
and 690,895 people are affected in over 362 villages - a majority of whom belong to the
fishing community. The Indian government estimates damages of over 1.8 billion U.S.
dollars in the tsunami-hit Tamil Nadu and the federal territories of Pondicherry and the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Nonetheless, the bulk of the damage is still in Tamil Nadu.
''You ask for bread and you get a bakery,'' is another complaint relief workers are
making, referring to the approach of some groups who, in their well-intentioned desire to
help, are offering anything from advanced power intensive water-making machines, to a
planeload of milk, disaster management training courses and scuba divers.
Amidst all this confusion there are also reports of some people completely unaffected by
the disaster trying to garner or corner supplies, while some tsunami victims belonging to
the 'untouchable' or Dalit community apparently get nothing due to caste discrimination.
''There are several cases of Dalit households being bypassed in the sharing of relief
material or assistance in clearing up their devastated settlements,'' the Banglore-based
Alternative Law Forum's Arvind Narayan, who's doing relief work in Nagapattinam, told IPS
in a phone interview.
Though the Indian government has refused foreign aid to help its tsunami affected
population, there is no shortage of funds or material to carry out relief operations. Apart
from financial contributions of over 70 million U.S. dollars to the Prime Minister's Relief
Fund, members of the Indian public, from movie stars to school children, have donated
materials generously to be sent to the tsunami-hit areas of southern India as well as the
Indian islands of Andaman and Nicobar.
All this is on top of large commitments of aid to tsunami victims already announced by
the Tamil Nadu government. The Indian government too has pitched in by quickly
deploying its armed forces to help with restoration and relief work and announcing
immediate financial assistance of over 60 million U.S. dollars to Tamil Nadu state.
The record of the Tamil Nadu state government in providing timely and adequate relief
to tsunami-affected coastal populations, though mixed, has been somewhat better than
the average sluggish Indian bureaucracy.
While in several districts the first bearers of relief were community organisations and
civil society groups, in the worst hit district of Nagapattinam government agencies took a
definite lead.
''The first agencies to reach the tsunami hit populations in the district were police and
local administration officials,'' said Dr. S R Srikrishna, community health specialist with the
Bangalore-based Community Health Cell, who was part of a delegation led by the British
relief agency Action Aid to survey affected villages in Nagapattinam.
In other places, after the initial shock and confusion, district level officials have
organised shelters for the homeless, medical camps for the injured and a clean-up of
affected areas to prevent outbreaks of epidemics. There are currently 402 temporary relief
centers sheltering over 300,000 displaced people in the state, who are being fed and
provided with medical attention at state expense.
There are doubts, however, about how long this bout of official enthusiasm for carrying
out relief work will last. For example while tsunami-affected families are right now getting
regular food rations and even a subsistence allowance from the government there are
indications that such relief might be stopped after the first month of the disaster.
"We have lost our homes, the tools of our trade and even the confidence to go back to
the sea. So if they stop giving us relief aid we will have to starve,'' said Krishnan, a
fisherman in Satras Kuppam - a fishing hamlet 70 kilometers south of Chennai - who
lost all his possessions including his house to the tsunami.
Some are also worried whether the state machinery's current show of concern will
translate into transparent, participatory and well-designed rehabilitation programs for the
tsunami-affected populations.
Given the scale of the disaster, a truly mammoth task awaits all those really interested in
helping out with the long-term rehabilitation of the tsunami-affected people, whose needs
range from getting over the psychological trauma of the disaster and looking after
orphaned children to rebuilding houses and restoring livelihoods.
''What is clearly required is a systematic, long-term approach whereby those who want
to help can pitch in at different levels and different times in a coordinated manner instead
of everybody trying to do everything at the same time,'' said Srikrishna, the community
heath specialist. (END/2005)
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