Kerala - Alappuzha   

Lack of facilities at relief camps Tsunami-hit complain of poor facilities at camps

A. Harikumar

Victims allege apathy on the part of Government

ALAPPUZHA: Eighty-year-old Karvarnan seethes with rage when asked about the conditions at the temporary shelter for tsunami victims at the Kuriyappasseri Devaswom ground, Arattupuzha. "Come with me and I will show you the travails of life in our shelters," he says.

Poor facilities

The tinned-roof shelter is a long hall divided into rooms by hardboard. They are no fans and only a few lights installed in the hall work, says Gopi of Puthenparambil House, who lost his house in the tsunami catastrophe.

The State Government has received hundreds of crores of rupees for rehabilitation of tsunami victims, but it has not spent a fraction of the amount for us, complained a group of women at the shelter.

Twenty shelters function at five centres in Arattupuzha. About 1,000 families are put up at these centres.

Narayanai, Karitharayil House, Tharayilkkadavu, complained that the Government had stopped providing free ration to those at the camp since the past two weeks. She had lost her house in sea erosion three years ago.

"I was living in a camp at the primary health centre here. The camp was damaged in the tsunami onslaught and we were shifted to the Kuriyappasseri Devaswom camp," she said.

Mr. Gopi said the Government had promised to provide each family Rs. 1,000 a month when they were shifted to the temporary shelters from the camps functioning in schools in the panchayat.

"But, so far we have not received a single paisa."

He pointed out that no top Government official had visited the temporary shelters.

Ministers and officials visit the panchayat for various functions, but they don't bother to visit the camps, he said.

Ravindran, an inmate at the shelter at the Valiyazheekkal Government Higher Secondary School, said the Government had not started building houses for those who had lost their dwelling units completely. Such people do not own any land, he said.

Poor people suffer

Construction of houses has begun in some places for those who have land in their name. This work is being done mainly by voluntary agencies, he said.

It is the most poor among the tsunami victims who do not own any land that suffer the worst.

Relief measures do not reach those families where the males are ailing or too old to fight for their rights, pointed out Sahadevan, a fisherman. The camp inmates said the State Government should take steps to provide fishing implements such as boats and nets. They alleged that the Government had failed to carry out the rehabilitation in a planned manner .

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