Opinion - Editorials   

Quick relief, slow rehabilitation

Democratic governments tend to be good at rescuing, and providing life-saving relief to, citizens during times of disaster. Their record is usually much worse when it comes to long-term rehabilitation. The tsunami of 2004 goaded the Central and State Governments into impressive action. Thousands of people who lost their homes were housed in temporary shelters; fishermen who lost their means of livelihood were given new boats and fishing gear; and families who lost their breadwinners were offered financial assistance without too many bureaucratic questions being asked. All this happened within the first few weeks, when officialdom's crisis response came under intense media and public scrutiny. Away from the glare, progress in rehabilitation work has been distressingly slow. In fact, the responses to the tsunami have clearly taken a path that could have been predicted by Amartya Sen's theoretical formulations on crisis and endemic hunger, the value of independent media vis-à-vis public policy, and the power of public opinion and public action. Typically, the Indian system tends to respond better to crises than to chronic maladies. Two years after the tsunami, the passage from temporary shelter to permanent house is yet to be made in several tsunami-hit areas of Tamil Nadu. Unlike the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where the inaccessibility of the affected areas made disaster management extraordinarily difficult, Tamil Nadu was able to reach help to the coastal areas with impressive speed. However, while the administration of the Union Territory was able to coordinate effectively with New Delhi on the utilisation of funds for long-term rehabilitation, serious political problems arose between the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Government in Tamil Nadu and the United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre, hampering the rehabilitation effort. This situation changed only when the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam came to power in May 2006.

New challenges have emerged in areas where post-tsunami rehabilitation work is now complete. Thanks to the `building back better' model of reconstruction of houses and infrastructure, the tsunami-hit areas shine in contrast to next-door communities and villages — which were spared by the killer waves and therefore remain untouched by governmental and voluntary agencies. As some coastal areas rose to relative prosperity on the strength of tsunami-related external assistance, neighbouring inland areas, which testify to decades of neglect, showed up the inequities created by the tsunami recovery programmes. The plain truth is that tens of millions of Indians who have never been affected by a natural disaster live in calamitous poverty and deprivation. Development cannot be allowed to bypass them.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Quick relief, slow rehabilitation
Dealing with Hamas
Sri Lanka: uncertainty as de-merger nears
BJP: return to temple politics
Turkmenistan after Niyazov
"Turkey must honour commitments"
Corrections and Clarifications
Singur stalemate
Political verdict
Time to take plunge
Make New Year happy

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu