The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Tsunami relief: 60 per cent of land acquisition over

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 23, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Tsunami relief: 60 per cent of land acquisition over

Staff Reporter

842.02 acres of land acquired for permanent shelters, says top official

CHENNAI: Almost 60 per cent of land acquisition for permanent shelters for the tsunami-affected in Tamil Nadu has been completed, Joint Commissioner for Relief and Rehabilitation Neeraj Mittal said here on Thursday.

He was speaking at the inauguration of a seminar on response to disaster situations organised by Stella Maris College.

Mr. Mittal said 842.02 acres of land had been acquired for permanent shelters and 499.47 acres were yet to be acquired. A sum of Rs. 23.2 crores had been spent for land acquisition. While the first phase of construction would be over by March 2006, the second phase is targeted to end by September 2006.

Mr. Mittal urged students to take up research issues such as micro economy chain in the fishing industry and co-operative work culture among fishermen in tsunami-hit areas. Another aspect that social work students could take up for study was to find out if immediate family care was better than orphanage care. Study of panchayat systems versus individual-based disbursement of relief was another interesting field, Mr. Mittal said.

S. Parasuraman, director of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, encouraged social work students to develop an analytical frame of mind, thereby making themselves capable of demanding rights for the downtrodden and neglected sections.

Commenting on the trend of governments moving away from offering basic services, Mr. Parasuraman said: "The tragedy of New Orleans is a good example of what unbridled capitalism can do.

Almost 40 per cent of the people could not be evacuated because they could not afford transportation fares."

When the government is unwilling to invest in services such as education and health care, the poor were the most-affected, he said. "Although countries, including India, China and Thailand, have shown an overall increase in wealth, social inequalities are increasing more than ever," Mr. Parasuraman said.

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