The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Land, housing rights sought for tsunami-hit

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

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Land, housing rights sought for tsunami-hit

Staff Reporter

Wrong to assume `that victims were flush with funds and relief material'

A YEAR ON: Survivors of the tsunami and members of the North Tamilnadu Relief and Rehabilitation Committee demanding land and housing rights at a demonstration near Valluvar Kottam on Thursday. — Photo: V.Ganesan

CHENNAI : The North Tamilnadu Tsunami Relief & Rehabilitation Committee, consisting of 31 non-governmental organisations, held a demonstration near Valluvar Kottam on Thursday demanding land and housing rights for the tsunami-affected.

The Committee asked the government to keep its promise of providing permanent housing for the tsunami-affected and help out families forced out of their temporary shelters by flooding. The assumptions that victims were flush with funds and relief material were not reflected by the lives of the affected families, speakers at the demonstration said.

The residents of Kargil Nagar expressed anguish at having been at the receiving end of the tsunami, a fire accident and inundation of their temporary shelters.

The Dalit community had been hardest hit, with no government assistance issued to mitigate their plight, V. Karuppan, convenor of the Dalit Joint Action Committee, said. Those involved in farming were badly affected by the farmlands turning saline. But they had been offered no succour, he added.

The committee demanded the halting of the displacement of people from their original homesteads, strengthening the coastal regulation zone laws to protect the under-privileged and demolition of constructions infringing the law.

Participants in the demonstration included tsunami survivors from Thiruvallur, Chennai and Kancheepuram, Geeta Ramakrishnan, Nirman Mazdoor Panchayat Sangh, and Rathai, State Committee Member of the AIDWA.

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