The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : State needs Rs. 3,776 crores for reconstruction: multilateral agencies

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 16, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

State needs Rs. 3,776 crores for reconstruction: multilateral agencies

By N. Ravi Kumar

CHENNAI, MARCH 15. A joint team of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations, which assessed tsunami damage in peninsular India, has estimated the reconstruction needs of Tamil Nadu — "the worst-affected State" — at $ 868 million (nearly Rs. 3,776 crores).

Kerala requires $ 158 million, followed by Pondicherry ($ 114 million) and Andhra Pradesh ($ 73 million), according to the Damage and Needs Assessment Report of the team, which pegged the overall requirement for rehabilitation and reconstruction at $ 1.2 billion.

Putting the damage to assets at $ 575 million and productivity losses at $ 450 million, the report said the reconstruction estimate was higher, as it took into account not only replacement of the damaged assets with new ones of equal value but also with upgrades to services and infrastructure for reducing the inherent vulnerability.

The team, according to an ADB communique, visited the affected areas from February 1 to 15 after the Centre "requested support to rebuild infrastructure, rehabilitate livelihoods and develop disaster prevention and management systems." While a draft summary was submitted to the Centre on February 18, the final report was released on Monday.

Discussions with Centre

The three multilateral agencies have begun discussion with the Centre to identify the nature of support each of them could extend and the implementation arrangements for the reconstruction programme. The largest proportion of the damage was in housing and fisheries, with the reconstruction estimated at $ 490 million and $ 285 million.

The overall estimates included the money required to restore livelihood and rectify the damage to infrastructure and agriculture. ``The losses related to livelihoods are of particular significance because they accentuate the pre-existing vulnerability to poverty of the households directly engaged in coastal fisheries, agriculture and micro-enterprises," say Shyamal Sarkar, Arjun Goswami and Pascal Girot, who led the joint assessment team on behalf of the World Bank, the ADB and the U.N. respectively.

``The disaster is a wake-up call to better manage risk. Effective hazard risk management in the future should be less dependent on relief and assistance, which draws valuable resources from other development goals. Instead, there is need to promote increased participation of the community in risk transfer insurance and community-level risk management and disaster prevention, while giving assistance to those affected,'' they said.

Noting that the protection of the most vulnerable segments of the displaced population and the improvement of their living conditions in temporary shelters over the coming months deserve special attention, the report said the reconstruction strategy approach should be participatory, equitable, flexible, decentralised and transparent.

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