Puducherry: Assembly Speaker R. Radhakrishnan handed over house keys to 225 families of fishermen of the Moorthy Pudhukuppam here on Wednesday.

The hamlet was among the several affected by the December 2004 tsunami in Puducherry. Delhi based non-governmental organisation SOS Children's Villages of India constructed the houses, located at a distance of 500 metres from the coastline, on an extent of 8 acres provided by the Puducherry Government.

They spent Rs.2.71 lakh per house, the construction of which commenced in September 2005.

Joint ownership

The department has allotted the houses under the joint ownership of husband and wife and where only one spouse was alive it would be in his or her name. The plinth area of each house is 425 sq.feet.

The Organisation isgetting ready 100 houses in the tsunami-hit Akkampettai village in Karaikal district. District Collector G. Theva Needhi Dhas told newspersons on that there would be a community hall and that each house was equipped with rainwater harvesting facilities.

He said a total of 7,567 houses were needed for the rehabilitation of the tsunami-hit families in Puducherry and Karaikal.

Rehabilitation packages

While 19 NGOs were getting ready 5,245 houses, the Project Implementation Agency of the Puducherry Administration was constructing 2,322 houses.

The Maharashtra government had come forward to construct 300 houses at a cost of Rs.2.5 crore in Pannithittu village.

Mr. Dhas said the Administration had acquired 37.3 hectares of land in Puducherry and 61 hectares in Karaikal for the housing scheme and had spent Rs.25 lakh per hectare to acquire the site.

Village level committees were in the process of identifying beneficiaries.

Mr. Dhas said while the World Bank had released Rs.158 crore under the Emergency Tsunami Reconstruction Project to meet the requirements of infrastructures in tsunami-hit villages, as much as Rs.73 crore was available through the Centrally-sponsored Rajiv Gandhi Rehabilitation Package scheme.

The Centre had sanctioned Rs.100 crore under the plan during the 2005-2006 fiscal. Rs.120 crore had been released under the current annual plan (2006-2007).

Education and Fisheries Minister M.O.H.F. Shahjahan, District Collector G. Theva Needhi Dhas, officials of the Revenue and Disaster Management Department and Assistant Village Director of the SOS Children's Villages of India Jijith Kumar were among those present.

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